Did you actually read the issue brief from KFF? they looked at a very narrow data set, a major city in less than one third of states and soemthing like half of those are preliminary filings and not final. pointing that out makes someone a truther?

[Edited on September 8, 2014 at 12:29 PM. Reason : insurance companies fucking loved this shit]

9/8/2014 12:28:47 PM

Yeah dude, that's how statistics work. You take a representative sample size to base your predictions off of. It's the exact same "narrow data set" they used the year before to project what the overall picture would look like. Bunch of armchair statisticians here.

I mean, jesus lord, it says it right there,

Quote :

"This brief presents an initial analysis of premium changes for marketplace plans for individuals in 15 states plus the District of Columbia, where we were able to find comprehensive data on rates or rate filings for all insurers. It follows a similar approach to our September 2013 analysis of 2014 marketplace premiums. "

And yes, it does make you a fucking truther. It's the exact same shit people like Karl Rove were saying to insist that Romney was still going to win. IT'S ONLY ONE PERCENT OF ONE DISTRICT, WAIT FOR ALL OF OHIO PEOPLE!!!!

[Edited on September 8, 2014 at 12:45 PM. Reason : :]

9/8/2014 12:38:59 PM

except that it's not a representative sample, they don't claim it to be from what I can tell, it's just the data that happened to be more readily available (which is even what they state in the part you quoted)

also:


[Edited on September 8, 2014 at 1:04 PM. Reason : .]

9/8/2014 12:53:10 PM

No, you're right, they never explicitly stated it.....

http://kff.org/health-reform/press-release/premiums-set-to-decline-slightly-for-benchmark-aca-marketplace-insurance-plans-in-2015/

Quote :

"Premiums Set to Decline Slightly for Benchmark ACA Marketplace Insurance Plans in 2015"

I mean, I don't get it. What's your point here? That we should wait before declaring Obamacare a breathtaking success? Hell, I'm not even doing that. I'm simply pointing out what it clearly isn't, an unmitigated disaster, and that everyone who said it would be has a giant load of egg on their face.

9/8/2014 1:08:46 PM

my point was only that it's hardly being a truther to point that out

(and now my point is that you are once again being immediately defensive against anyone who you perceive to disagree with the approved party line)

[Edited on September 8, 2014 at 1:15 PM. Reason : stop being such a ridiculous liberal apologist]

9/8/2014 1:14:27 PM

when did the far left party line position change from "this is not going to destroy private healthcare, private healthcare loves this and that's a good thing" to "private insurance companies hate this, this doesn't help private insurance companies and that's a good thing"

it's almost a complete 180

[Edited on September 8, 2014 at 1:17 PM. Reason : not far left at all]

9/8/2014 1:17:31 PM

Did you read the posts I was replying too? One didn't even respond to the study, he basically said he still believes it's going to fail because he says so. The other asked me to RTFS while grossly misreading it himself. You are correct to point out that this may not be a representative sample (even though it absolutely proved to be last year), which is a far cry from trutherism, but the posts I responded to were 100% this guy,

9/8/2014 1:22:46 PM

Where did that -0.8% on the last page come from? Perhaps it's the decrease in the rate of increase for someone. That's not comforting if the rate of increase is still greater than the rate of increase of economic activity, wages, interest on bank accounts, and so on and so fourth.

Quote :

"And outlawed rescission, and capped non-medical care spending by insurance companies, and made preventative care free, and, and, and ..... Make no mistake, insurance companies don't like the law. They accepted it because they realized it was the only they could survive in a UHC world."

Those did need to be corrected. It's baffling that such practices were ever allowed in the first place. Not because I hate the free market, but because they were selling it under the moniker of "insurance". No one would buy insurance that doesn't insure you for something.

We still haven't fixed the charge master lists, prescription pill pricing, and other BS like that. One of the few things I agreed with the Democrats on in 2008 was that something needed to be done. The insurance companies would have probably preferred the ACA crash and burn. After all, if reform is truly inevitable, why not have a Republican-led congress do it? Can you imagine how much share prices would have gone up by?

The Democrats also argued that the ACA was just to get their "foot in the door". Presumably, this means they knew we'd still have problems in the future. Whether those are old unfixed problems or entirely new issues, I'm not sure. Currently I worry that we'll never get anything fixed unless we have another crisis. In order to be sustainable, health care in the US will have to look very different from what it is now. I'm talking about assembly-line surgeries. We can't just keep adding bureaucracy and increasing costs with no endpoint.

9/8/2014 3:26:16 PM

Quote :

"And outlawed rescission, and capped non-medical care spending by insurance companies, and made preventative care free, and, and, and ..... Make no mistake, insurance companies don't like the law. They accepted it because they realized it was the only they could survive in a UHC world."

You believe insurance companies won't like it because it drove up costs? As it drove up everyone's costs, especially their competitors, the "insurance industry" as a whole will love this part of the law, since higher costs will drive smaller competitors out of the market. As such, on the whole, insurance prices will rise to cover the increased costs, and then rise more to cover the decreased competition. While they are indifferent about the first, the surviving insurance companies LOVE the second part. Therefore, insurance companies should love this part of the law.

9/9/2014 9:23:23 AM

Quote :

"since higher costs will drive smaller competitors out of the market. As such, on the whole, insurance prices will rise to cover the increased costs, and then rise more to cover the decreased competition."

Higher marginal costs don't drive out smaller competitors. Higher fixed costs do. Fixed costs go with the complexity of regulation, since customers are generally dealt with via a computer system as much as a human employee these days. A larger number of regulatory considerations favor larger players, but not necessarily the health care cost per customer.

9/9/2014 8:48:28 PM

I have insurance thanks to Obamacare.

Thanks, Obama!

9/10/2014 8:50:22 AM

Quote :

"and capped non-medical care spending by insurance companies"

Easily one of the dumbest things they could do, further proving that the people who wrote the law, and the morons who support it, don't have the slightest fucking clue at all what "insurance" is.

Quote :

"What the fuck is this shit? Obamacare truthers? Did you morons learn nothing from the 2012 elections? YOU. WERE. WRONG. Deal with it."

Nice. "You were wrong" means what, exactly, in the context of what you quoted? That there's millions of stupid fucking people in the US who voted for a turd sandwich over a giant douche doesn't prove that anyone was wrong or right. it just shows that we had a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich, and people just chose the turd sandwich.

9/11/2014 12:19:18 AM

Quote :

""and capped non-medical care spending by insurance companies" Easily one of the dumbest things they could do, further proving that the people who wrote the law, and the morons who support it, don't have the slightest fucking clue at all what "insurance" is."

Well this doesn't make real sense to me. Insurance should be assessed in terms of its actuarial value, which is frequency x cost. If you're getting flood insurance, then your premiums should be a reasonable multiple of this. Perhaps 1.5 times that. If you're paying 2x or more of the actuarial value, you're probably getting ripped off. The above regulation seems to be about this exact thing.

In some cases, actuarial value is difficult or impossible to evaluate... let's say for coal ash spills. The number of spills is so low that statistical problems are significant.

This is totally not at all the case with health care. On a national level, the costs for health care on a national level can be predicted to within about 1%. See my figure on the last page. Costs might increase 4.5% one year, and then 3.5% the next year. You don't have to set prices 5 goddam years in advance. You're only absorbing monthly or yearly price uncertainty into the profit margins, and this is probably negligible. Institutionally, small organizations could have problems with outliers putting them in the red, but the big fish are so huge that they probably show practically zero deviation from the national numbers.

9/11/2014 10:03:56 AM

Quote :

"The other asked me to RTFS while grossly misreading it himself. "

I can't begin to fathom how out of your goddamn mind you actually are. Did you even read the study bro?

For these 15 states sampled, on average Obamacare reduced premiums for 40 yr old non smokers making 30k a year choosing a silver plan BEFORE tax subsidies. Magically, and only in liberal land where economic stupidity reigns, it actually increased the after tax subsidies cost by .1% for this group. THIS GROUP. 40 yr old non smokers making 30k a year.

For 40 yr old non smokers making 30 k a year that choose a bronze plan, the INCREASE is 3.3% before subsidy and 5.9% after.

For the average single adult 25 yrs old making 25k the after subsidy premium increase for the cheapest bronze plan is 5.57%.
For the average family of 4 making 60k a year, the average after subsidy premium increase for the cheapest bronze is a whopping 12.11%.

That's straight from their study.

Also curious is the fact that in all 15 states the decreases for the 2nd lowest silver for the 3 additional different groups they selected is identical in every state with the exact same 2014 and 2015 premium numbers for many of those states. It's almost as if they fucked up their own study. However, my guess is since 2nd lowest silver is the "benchmark" the insurance companies made sure that those numbers looked good, and of course Kaiser focused on that and every stupid left leaning site latched on this and spewed it out to the ignorant masses like you Shrike.

9/11/2014 6:05:46 PM

Have hospitals/caretakers seen a difference? Have there been a change in write-offs from uninsured patients? If so, what has this value been?

9/11/2014 7:58:30 PM

^^Like I said, you misread the study, even though it warned you not too.

Quote :

"(Note that the 0.8% decrease here is unrelated to the 0.8% average decrease in unsubsidized premiums; it is merely coincidental that the two numbers are similar)."

CuntPunter =

9/12/2014 12:00:33 PM

I know it's tough to go on with life when data that disrupts your worldview has to be contemplated. Straight from the study, take some time to read it and stop being a fucking idiot



[Edited on September 12, 2014 at 5:30 PM. Reason : a]

9/12/2014 5:29:59 PM

Numbers for premiums don't sound very meaningful to me. The amount of out-of-pocket spending could have gone up at the same time. In that case, you're not reporting a cost reduction, just a one-time switch from one balance of premiums/copays to another. It's possible that certain socioeconomic groups are bearing more of the burden (like the Cadillac plans), so that's causing the median individual to get a much better deal. But those are very little in the grad scheme of things, so this is outright unbelievable.

Any meaningful numbers that reflect overall spending clearly are going up, and at a rate faster than other stuff.

9/17/2014 9:37:03 AM

What? You mean Shrike and other liberals cherry-pick numbers to make the miserable failure of Obamacare look better? You mean it's doing kind of the same thing as the Romneycare it was based on?

9/19/2014 10:48:10 PM

my general practitioner had to close his practice last month as a direct result of obamacare. (I've been going to his practice since middle school)

9/19/2014 11:37:20 PM

no he didnt, he was just greedy

9/19/2014 11:45:56 PM

news to me: there is a huge loophole to ACA. claim you are a christian and join a "Health care sharing ministry" like Medi-share.

https://mychristiancare.org/exemption.aspx

thoughts?

9/20/2014 8:49:26 AM

^ That's sort of how insurance is supposed to work.

I wonder if costs were distributed based on means, and varied, for a secular program, how would it work out...

9/21/2014 2:38:28 AM

Quote :

"news to me: there is a huge loophole to ACA. claim you are a christian and join a "Health care sharing ministry" like Medi-share. https://mychristiancare.org/exemption.aspx thoughts?"

This sounds like a ponzi scheme. Cant wait to see it on American Greed.

"Faithful lose millions in health insurance premiums. Founder and CEO on the run from the FBI, last known location a country with a brutal dictator that brutalizes all religions and has no diplomatic ties to the US."

9/21/2014 2:45:43 AM

So, the ACA is such a resounding success, that Obama and his buddies will announce the new prices for next year... AFTER the election. Could he be any more political about shit like this?

10/21/2014 10:40:43 PM

He could be as political as the GOP about it. They filibustered for months to make the law what they wanted, them didn't vote on it. When some problems were found in the law, they refused to do anything about it. When Obama delayed execution of some parts to prevent hardships on business and people, they threatened to sue him. And to this day, they won't entertain legislative fixes, they're probably waiting until after the election too.

So Obama tries to fix the law, gop blocks it, but somehow it's Obama that's the bad guy playing politics.

How about the gop stop sabotaging our government to stick it to Obama? How about they try to help fix aca so businesses and people to have to worry about the uncertainty? How about they addresses the fact that our middle class has ceded the wealth crown to Canada? How about they addresses the fact that life expectancies are dropping, or inequality is at the highest level in 100 years, or get a surgeon General approved?

RepubLicans haven't been making any attempt at governance, their entire actions have centered solely around politics since Obama to office. Things could have been much better if they actually participated in governing.

[Edited on October 21, 2014 at 10:53 PM. Reason : ]

10/21/2014 10:52:42 PM

they govern by sticking it to obama

why do you people think its congress' job to line up rank and file behind the president?

they dont have to agree to a god damn thing, and we will see soon enough if americans want them to keep sticking it to him

10/21/2014 11:19:53 PM

I don't expect them to line up rank and file behind the president.

But their primary job is to run the country-- they're purposely letting things slip through the cracks, because they know it will be blamed on Obama (not that obama doesn't also create his own problems).

Yes, i get gridlock fulfills the ideology of not causing gov. to grow, but letting flaws remain in a law, and not confirming appointees, seem derelict. That isn't ideological, it's negligence. The appointees thing is also unprecedented. There's plenty of ways they could market fixing ACA to make Obama look bad. Just letting the law stay broken only hurts americans, and ignoring problems just hurts americans. IOW, they're not sticking it to Obama they're sticking it to Americans.


[Edited on October 22, 2014 at 1:15 AM. Reason : ]

10/22/2014 1:13:54 AM

Most of the biggest haters of the ACA get their insurance from a large corporation, the government, or a spouse and have no fucking clue what the difference is for people that purchase their own insurance. Many people due to self employment, being in school, being underemployed, etc have a need to just buy insurance like you would auto, home, or life insurance and pay out of pocket.

Not everyone's job has a fucking HR department with a full suite of benefits available....I wish someone would fucking explain this to the republicans. The GOP could do itself a favor by recognizing that the old system was full of flaws as well.

10/22/2014 1:27:16 AM

That's the thing... the GOP knows the old system was broken. That's why they let ACA pass. It's why no one's seriously tried to repeal ACA (the token votes were just that-- they knew they'd never pass).

But you won't hear them say this in a debate or an ad, because it doesn't help them. They've built a brand of hating on obama, and they can't turn that brand on a dime.

Republicans are most likely going to win congress this go-round, and they'll make the fixes democrats have been talking about (and obama has said he wants to see made) and paint this as the GOP saving the day.

I still don't see them doing anything about inequality or climate change, but i don't see ACA being repealed either.

10/22/2014 1:39:00 AM

Thom Tillis just said that we should expand Medicaid

Lol

10/22/2014 6:38:36 AM

^^ No matter how big their landslide victory will be, they can't override a Veto. Your assertion that they secretly love the ACA is absurd. Their votes to repeal never went anywhere because Obama was president and would veto any such bill.

That said, you are right, healthcare was broken. More of the what was wrong with it has only broken it even more. No doubt the GOP is happy watching the Dems kill themselves over it. Any attempt to fix it will be insanely unpopular...So maybe you're right. In two years when the Republicans control all three branches of the government and could do something to fix it, they might choose not to and allow it to keep failing madly upon the Dems heads.

10/22/2014 8:44:33 AM

The parts that they hate, the marketplace and required participation, are ideas that they created. It was supposed to be the "free" market way to fix healthcare.

10/22/2014 8:53:28 AM

That's not the parts they hate. The parts they hate are poor people, mostly minorities, getting free or extremely cheap health care subsidized by the government. The most damaging thing they've done is deny the medicaid expansion, especially in large states like Texas and Florida, who are #1 and #2 states in uninsured people.

Quote :

"So, the ACA is such a resounding success......yadda yadda bullshit"

No one has ever said it's been a "resounding success". You know what has been said though? That it's been a catastrophic failure. That it's worse than the Holocaust. That it's going to cause explosive premium growth and reduced access to care. Absolutely none of those things have happened, and the law has basically met or exceeded all it's participation benchmarks while coinciding with a slowing rate of premium growth. How about you start defending all the false claims made about the law over the past 3 years?

10/22/2014 9:49:04 AM

Please tell me more about your knowledge of my bills.

Quote :

"The parts they hate are poor people, mostly minorities, getting free or extremely cheap health care subsidized by the government."

Yes, because that's just good ol' fashioned fun.



[Edited on October 22, 2014 at 11:15 AM. Reason : -]

10/22/2014 11:05:47 AM

Quote :

"The parts they hate are poor people, mostly minorities, getting free or extremely cheap health care subsidized by the government."

According to several republicans I've heard from, this is pretty much right on. They hate any subsidy to the poor, because they're lazy and just want to live off of the government.

10/22/2014 11:40:37 AM

that describes a huge number of republicans

10/22/2014 4:00:19 PM

The only specific part that I've seen them hate on is the minimum standards for coverage. They'd rather there be no standards, which would allow for some cheaper token plans.

There are some issues too with how employers are expected to handle the changes, which is why the Obama admin has delayed certain portions regarding that. It's also not obvious if the individual mandate is NEEDED, because enough people will seek out healthcare when it's available (but of course this needs to be studied).

They just hate it, because Obama did it, mostly. They don't hate it because it's a handout to the insurance companies, because this is what they wanted.

10/23/2014 1:55:58 AM

yes, this is the bill that they wanted, the one that was passed with literally zero support from republicans, not a single yes vote in either house or senate.

Whether this bill ultimately is a success or a failure it belongs entirely to Obama and the Dems in congress.

10/23/2014 2:13:36 AM

^ You realize that for months, republicans filibustered the passage to make the bill what they wanted, then refused to vote on it, but didn't filibuster, when it had the pieces they wanted? They made a "deal" to let it pass, in exchange for those compromise.

I didn't think anyone who followed politics would fall for this ploy, but I guess I was wrong...

10/23/2014 2:47:44 AM

Quote :

"You realize that for months, republicans filibustered the passage to make the bill what they wanted, then refused to vote on it, but didn't filibuster, when it had the pieces they wanted? They made a "deal" to let it pass, in exchange for those compromise."

Well, the fact that they couldn't even get 60 for quite a while when they had 60 in the senate probably had a lot to do with it. There were at least a handful of dems and Joe Lieberman who didn't want the bill as proposed either.

They pretty much had from July of 2009 until Feb. of 2010 to force through what they wanted without the republicans being able to filibuster had they been able to wrangle their own party (plus Sanders and Lieberman who are for all intents and purposes dems). They would have forced it through sooner had Ted Kennedy not inconveniently kicked the bucket.

10/24/2014 10:12:48 AM

Quote :

"The Supreme Court announced Friday that it will hear the most serious challenge to the Affordable Care Act since the justices found it constitutional more than two years ago: a lawsuit targeting the federal subsidies that help millions of Americans buy health insurance. But challengers say the administration is violating the plain language of the law. They are represented by the same conservative legal strategists who fell one vote short of convincing the court that the law was unconstitutional the last time around. The question in this challenge is whether the subsidies should be available to all Americans who qualify or only to those who purchase insurance through exchanges “established by the state"."

nice

apparently they set it up so that you could only get subsidies through your state to pressure states into setting up exchanges. when that backfired they got the IRS to change the intent of the law

[Edited on November 8, 2014 at 6:20 AM. Reason : h]

11/8/2014 6:15:20 AM

I, too, marvel at the prospects of 7,500,000 people losing their access to healthcare to spite a Democratic president. . .

11/8/2014 12:27:44 PM

The whole idea of state exchanges was a nod to republicans, as a gesture to resurrect state's rights.

I have to respect the underhanded cleverness of this legal argument but the obvious intent is for everyone to qualify for subsidies regardless of where they bought insurance. Seems like it shouldn't be more than a procedural thing to correct ambiguous wording like this but I honestly don't know the process after a Bill is passed for "typos ".

The other ironic thing is that republicans bashed the bill for being so lengthy originally, but the whole reasons the bills are so long is to try and avoid this situation.

11/8/2014 1:00:18 PM

Quote :

"I, too, marvel at the prospects of 7,500,000 people losing their access to healthcare to spite a Democratic president. . ."

Is "Democratic" codespeak for black now?

11/8/2014 1:21:58 PM

11/8/2014 2:00:59 PM

Quote :

"I, too, marvel at the prospects of 7,500,000 people losing their access to healthcare to spite a Democratic president. . ."

has nothing to do with obama. healthcare is a state issue per the bill of rights. amendment 10

[Edited on November 8, 2014 at 7:06 PM. Reason : h]

11/8/2014 7:01:04 PM

or maybe the hallmark of your entire presidency should be important enough to not include typos

11/8/2014 7:36:35 PM

^^ Because several states (including NC) have proven sooooo capable of handling complete healthcare coverage......

11/8/2014 11:05:43 PM

Quote :

"I have to respect the underhanded cleverness of this legal argument but the obvious intent is for everyone to qualify for subsidies regardless of where they bought insurance."

That is patently and completely false. Even one of the architects of the bill said as much when he was campaigning for its passage. The intent absolutely was to shame states into setting up their own exchanges. Typos in bills are routinely corrected within days of passage. This one wasn't, and it wasn't corrected because it was meant to be that way. There are numerous places throughout the entire bill that reference BOTH the state and federal exchanges, yet in every single place where the subsidies are mentioned, ONLY state exchanges are mentioned. That is not a typo.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/07/25/obamacare-architect-agreed-with-gop-exchange-subsidies-can-only-flow-through-state-exchanges/

11/8/2014 11:38:48 PM