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Showing posts with label Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

The Still Lower Costs of the Affordable Care Act

I know that conservatives like to live in the own little bubble where they feel entitled to their own facts but I have to wonder what goes through their head when they see stories like this.

Obamacare’s projected cost falls due to lower premiums under health care law, CBO says

The Congressional Budget Office announced on Monday that the Affordable Care Act will cost $142 billion, or 11 percent, less over the next 10 years, compared to what the agency had projected in January. The nonpartisan agency said the Affordable Care Act will cost less for two essential reasons. The first, and most significant, is that health insurance premiums are rising more slowly, and thus requires less of a government subsidy.

In addition, slightly fewer people are now expected to sign up for Medicaid and for subsidized insurance under the law's marketplaces. That's because the agency now says that more people than anticipated already had health insurance before the law took effect, and fewer companies than anticipated are canceling coverage. All in all, three million fewer people are expected to sign up for Affordable Care Act provisions by 2025. Still, by 2025, the CBO estimates "the total number of people who will be uninsured ... is now expected to be smaller than previously projected," because more will have had health insurance to begin with.

Will they capitulate or continue to believe?

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Standing in King V Burwell

Two recent stories in the Wall Street Journal (here and here) raise significant queries as to whether or not the people bringing suit against the ACA have standing to even do so.

Legal experts say the fact that Mr. King could avoid paying the penalty for lacking insurance by enrolling in VA coverage undermines his legal right to bring the case, known as “standing.” The wife of a second plaintiff has described her husband on social media as being a Vietnam veteran. The government previously questioned the standing of a third plaintiff on the grounds that her income may exempt her from paying the penalty for lacking insurance, but a lower court didn’t address the issue.

So, why did they bring about this suit?

Mr. King said his challenge to the law is “not about me,” but rather an effort he undertook for his family and others to bring down the health law.

Ah, so he suffers from Obama Mental Meltdown Syndrome....always a sound reason to go to the Supreme Court.

Worse, we are still stuck on the "not letting him win no matter what!!" mentality.

Thursday, February 05, 2015

Who Has The Most Anxiety?

At first glance, the Supreme Court's looming decision in the King V Burwell case will cause the president and the Democrats the most anxiety. If SCOTUS decides that the subsidies do not apply to the states that do not have their own exchanges and are being run by the federal government, millions will lose coverage.

Yet, if I were a conservative, I would think for a moment before I began to thump my chest in victory over the president. This recent piece from AP details how Republicans have quite a bit to lose as well from such a decision.

RED STATES IN THE PATH

Insurance losses would be concentrated in Republican-led states, which have resisted "Obamacare." Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, Michigan, and New Jersey are among those with the most to lose. Residents of blue states that are running their own markets would continue to receive benefits.

"It is not simply a function of law or ideology; there are practical impacts on high numbers of people," said Republican Mike Leavitt, a former federal health secretary now heading a health care consulting firm.

Because the health law's 2015 sign-up season is still under way, it's unclear how many millions of people could become uninsured. Two independent studies estimate around 8 million. Not all the 37 states where the federal government is currently running insurance markets would be affected equally. Some have made progress setting up their own exchanges.

Imagine you are a Republican governor of one of these states and suddenly millions of your constituents lose their coverage. Certainly, there would be some people that would blame the president but there would be plenty that would blame you.

That's why I predict, in what will be most amusing irony, Republican governors will end up putting together their own exchanges should the court rule against the president. Eventually, every state will and should have their own exchange. This way the federal government can be kept out of it to a greater degree and conservatives can claim some sort of victory. 

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Wow

House votes - again - to repeal Obamacare

This latest vote marked the 67th time the House has voted to entirely repeal, defund or change some provisions of President Barack Obama's signature health care law. Republican aides emphasize that 10 changes to the law have been signed into law by the President.

I am reminded of the following quote...

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

A Very Busy and Informative CBO

So, the Congressional Budget Office has been busy of late. First up, we have this...

CBO: Deficit to shrink to lowest level of Obama presidency 

In a report released Monday, CBO says the deficit will be $468 billion for the budget year that ends in September. That's slightly less than last year's $483 billion deficit.

Of course, the Cult is still going to believe whatever is reported inside of their highly emotional and irrational bubble. Maybe a picture might help.




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(note: the above graphic does not include the revised and even lower figures just released by the CBO).

We also have this from the CBO...

Budget Office Lowers Its Estimate on Federal Spending for Health Care


With the latest revision, the budget office has now reduced its 10-year estimate for spending by Medicare, Medicaid and other health programs by $1.23 trillion starting in 2010, the year the health care law took effect. By 2039, the savings would amount to $250 billion a year today, or about 1.5 percent of the economy.

And the bubble continues to contract...:)

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Death Panels Are Real

In what has to be the finest example of irony seen in quite some time, this recent report from health affairs.org illustrates how Republican governors, by opting out of the Medicaid expansion, have essentially fulfilled Sarah Palin's prediction of "death panels."

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow states to opt out of Medicaid expansion will have adverse health and financial consequences. Based on recent data from the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment, we predict that many low-income women will forego recommended breast and cervical cancer screening; diabetics will forego medications, and all low-income adults will face a greater likelihood of depression, catastrophic medical expenses, and death.

Wow. It doesn't get any more direct than that.

The report is filled with facts and data (liberal lies and deceit for those of you who reside inside the bubble) that show the exact number of people that are going to be affected in each state that has opted out. It also shows how they will be affected.

I wonder how voters in these states are going to feel about this...hmm...maybe I need to revise my prediction of the demise of the Republican party to an earlier time than I originally thought...

Saturday, July 12, 2014

ACA Update

We've seen a flurry of news regarding the Affordable Care Act recently with the most hilarious being that 74% of Republicans of newly insured Republicans like their plan. We also have the graphic below from Gallup.






















So, the uninsured rate is now the lowest it's ever been since Gallup started polling six years ago.

Of course, it can't all be good news. House Speaker John Boehner recently stated that the impetus behind suing President Obama is his delaying of the employer mandate in the ACA. The ACA...hmm...that would be the law that House Republicans have tried to repeal how many times now?

Also worthy of note...zombie lies about the ACA that still aren't true

No one will sign up
People won't pay the premiums
Young people haven't signed up
Death panels
It will ruin our economy
We will all be thrown into a boiling pit of sewage

Seems to me like that bubble is contracting just a wee bit more than they would like:)

Thursday, May 01, 2014

Cancelling The Cancelled Plan Meme

Here's an interesting study on how the whole cancelled plan meme isn't quite the boiling pit of sewage they made it out to be. Here are its main findings.

First, this market was characterized by high turnover: Only 42 percent of people with nongroup coverage at the outset of the study period retained that coverage after twelve months. Second, 80 percent of people experiencing coverage changes acquired other insurance within a year, most commonly from an employer. Third, turnover varied across groups, with stable coverage more common for whites and self-employed people than for other groups. Turnover was particularly high among adults ages 19–35, with only 21 percent of young adults retaining continuous nongroup coverage for two years. Given estimates from 2012 that 10.8 million people were covered in this market, these results suggest that 6.2 million people leave nongroup coverage annually.

What does it mean?

This suggests that the nongroup market was characterized by frequent disruptions in coverage before the ACA and that the effects of the recent cancellations are not necessarily out of the norm. These results can serve as a useful pre-ACA baseline with which to evaluate the law’s long-term impact on the stability of nongroup coverage. 

The president should still be criticized for making it sound like the ACA would fix all of this but the fact is that without the ACA, if you liked your insurance, you wouldn't have gotten to keep it anyway. 

Monday, April 28, 2014

Who Is Ben Carson?

Politico has a piece up about Dr. Ben Carson, the latest conservative darling who is fast becoming as revered as Thomas Sowell inside the bubble. I'm always amused when the Right flocks to people like this.

In October, Carson made headlines again when he said that the Affordable Care Act’s framework of mandates, insurance exchanges and federal subsidies amounted to “the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.” He meant the comparison literally. “It is slavery in a way,” Carson, who is African American, went on, “because it is making all of us subservient to the government, and it was never about health care. It was about control.” 

First of all, who gives a shit if he is black? He's still a moron. Buying regulated private insurance is the same thing as human bondage? Really?

I don't see the GOP learning anything from 2012 which means the Democrats are going to keep winning elections.

Friday, April 25, 2014

Getting Behind the ACA

It looks like Democrats are taking my advice and getting behind the ACA. Check out this ad from "imperiled" Democratic Senator Mark Begich of Alaska.



The Times has a piece on how more Democrats are jumping on board with the ACA.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Republican Victory in 2014?

The recent New York Times Kaiser Family Foundation Poll illustrates that the Republican "victory" seven months ahead of the 2014 elections may be a bit premature. It looks like Mark Pryor isn't as much on the hot seat anymore. And Kay Hagan is holding her own in North Carolina. As expected, Mitch McConnell is on the hot seat in Kentucky and it will be interesting to see if this race stays as deadlocked into the fall.

So, why is this happening? I thought that the GOP was going to be able to cruise to victory on the evils of Obamacare. The numbers from Arkansas and Kentucky, where two Democratic governors embraced Medicaid expansion, say otherwise. Kentucky also ran its own exchange which did very, very well so if I were ol' Mitchie, I'd lay off the anti-Obamacare talk. Does he (and other Republicans, for that matter) really want to stand for taking away people's health care?

The key for the Democrats, as Dan Balz notes, is to get the same level of turnout in a presidential year.  It's helpful that the president's approval ratings are on the rise to the mid 40s from the lower 40s where they have been stuck for quite some time. But his good news isn't getting across and that needs to happen ASAP. Oddly, he seems to be doing a better job with the ACA than with the economy.

Democrats need to take heart that some of the worst nightmares for the Republicans are coming true. The ACA is working and will help the Democratic vote in the tossup states. The economy is growing at a 3 percent rate. Even if just these two issues coalesce in November, nothing will change in the Senate and the Democrats may surprise a few people in the House.

Monday, April 21, 2014

The President's Victory Lap

Last week, the president announced that 8 million people had enrolled in the online exchange during the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act. Juxtaposed with the CBO's data which details how the ACA will be $100 billion dollars lower than expected and that 35 percent of the enrollees are under 35 this is remarkably good news that no one thought was possible after the botched roll out of the web site.

So, it's understandable that the president took a victory lap and wondered, “I find it strange that the Republican position on this law is still stuck in the same place that it has always been. They still can’t bring themselves to admit that the Affordable Care Act is working. They said nobody would sign up; they were wrong about that. They said it would be unaffordable for the country; they were wrong about that.”

Well, Mr. President, it's because they are 12 year old boys who can't stand to be wrong. Worse for them, we are starting to see stories like this.

And even bolder ones like this. 

Of course, these are the same folks who predicted just a few weeks ago that the Senate would fall to the GOP so take it all with a boulder of salt. It's going to all depend who the candidates are and we don't know that yet. If the GOP can't dampen the far right fervor of the base that decides the candidates in the primaries, they will lose their chances at the Senate.

In addition, I think there has been sufficient warning given to the Democrats to use the same get out the vote mechanisms that helped the president win in 2012. Combine this with the realities of millions of newly insured people who will vote this fall and all the doom predicted for the Democrats washes away. I think it's time to ask a serious question of the Republicans.

Are they really going to run on a platform of taking away people's health care?

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Good Words

But the thing that is really killing Mitch McConnell, I think, is the incredible success of Kentucky Kynect. They don't call it Obamacare, very smartly. But this is probably the best run state exchange in the country. Governor Beshear, a Democrat. And the fact that these people have health care after all this time and Mitch McConnell did everything he could to stop them from getting health care. That's got to be a factor here. 

You are going to see this all over the country, in fact you already are seeing this all over the country. There's a poll today, the folks suggested that we ought to be on the offensive on Obamacare. We ought to be supporting it. We ought to be proud that we supported it because it is in fact providing people with health care. And nobody knows that better than the people of Kentucky. This is a poor state. A lot of people uninsured. A lot of those people have insurance [now]. That's not going to help Mitch McConnell.

(Howard Dean April 15, 2014)

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Still No Obamacare Boiling Pit of Sewage In Which We Will All Roil and Scream

The CBO and Joint Committee on Taxation released a series of new estimates Monday on the law’s costs and the number of people it will cover. Here are the numbers and main points:
  • Insurance premiums under Obamacare are projected to rise less than 3 percent in 2015, a smaller-than-expected jump as the health insurance exchanges enter their second year.
  • 12 million more Americans will have health coverage in 2014 than would have been the case without the ACA
  • Coverage through the law will cost the federal government about $5 billion less than expected this year.
  • The law’s 10-year cost for the coverage provisions is pegged at $1.383 trillion — $104 billion less than prior calculations. Both figures are lower than prior estimates mostly because the CBO and JCT anticipate premium subsidies being smaller.
  • The budget estimates now project premiums to be about 15 percent lower in 2016 than initial projections four years ago.

SMALLER premium rises? Really? That's not what the folks are telling me inside the bubble.

Saturday, April 12, 2014

The Only Health Care Nightmare? Pure Spite

Paul Krugman's recent piece on the Affordable Care Act pretty much sums everything up to current status. Some choice cuts...

But wait: What about all the people who lost their policies thanks to Obamacare? The answer is that this looks more than ever like a relatively small issue hyped by right-wing propaganda. RAND finds that fewer than a million people who previously had individual insurance became uninsured — and many of those transitions, one guesses, had nothing to do with Obamacare. It’s worth noting that, so far, not one of the supposed horror stories touted in Koch-backed anti-reform advertisements has stood up to scrutiny, suggesting that real horror stories are rare.

Rare indeed. So much so that you really don't here about them much except for in the right wing blogsphere with the sole intention of increasing mouth foam.

Republicans clearly have no idea how to respond to these developments. They can’t offer any real alternative to Obamacare, because you can’t achieve the good stuff in the Affordable Care Act, like coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, without also including the stuff they hate, the requirement that everyone buy insurance and the subsidies that make that requirement possible. Their political strategy has been to talk vaguely about replacing reform while waiting for its inevitable collapse. And what if reform doesn’t collapse? They have no idea what to do.

This is especially true since it was their idea to begin with!

What’s amazing about this wave of rejection is that it appears to be motivated by pure spite. The federal government is prepared to pay for Medicaid expansion, so it would cost the states nothing, and would, in fact, provide an inflow of dollars. The health economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the principal architects of health reform — and normally a very mild-mannered guy — recently summed it up: The Medicaid-rejection states “are willing to sacrifice billions of dollars of injections into their economy in order to punish poor people. It really is just almost awesome in its evilness.” Indeed.

Motivated by pure spite...one could extend that to pretty much every issue the Right whines about. They really don't have any there there...

Gruber's point really drives home how this issue ties into all the other ones that will part of this year's election. Last Wednesday, in a single committee meeting, Republicans voted against the Minimum Wage, Equal Pay, LGBT Rights, and Mine Safety. Add in a decided lack of movement on the immigration issue and the Republican party is pretty much the same one that ran behind Mitt Romney in 2012. Have they learned anything?

More importantly, do they honestly think voters aren't paying attention to this?

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Kentucky Cuts Uninsured By 40%

The Affordable Care Act has cut Kentucky's uninsured population by more than 40 percent, signing up roughly 360,000 residents since enrollment opened up on Oct. 1. Some 75 percent of them -- 270,000 -- were previously uninsured. That means Kentucky's uninsured population of 640,000 has come down by 42 percent.

And the Democrats want to run away from this? I think we are going to see a whole lot of about faces over the next few months when candidates realize just how many voters are better off as a result of the ACA.