Republican thinking:
Those are all illegals and I'm paying for their insurance....... And the Obama regime is paying for their votes
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Obamacare Saves Consumers $2.1 Billion Since 2011
- Thread starter thoughtone
- Start date
Republican thinking:
Those are all illegals and I'm paying for their insurance....... And the Obama regime is paying for their votes
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
Which is stupid. Except for the medicaid folx, Obamacare only helps pay for health care for people who don't have employer plans. And not everyone qualifies for a subsidy. People are still having to come up out of pocket. That and add standards/specifics policies must cover so people aren't paying all this money for insurance each month, only to find out it's junk insurance when they need to actually use it. I would like to see the graphs in one year regarding household incomes and bankruptcies after a year or two. This should add more money to the economy and also help people who would normally have lost everything due to not being able to get coverage for preexisting conditions retain wealth. I'd also like to see the healthcare costs: if they rise, stay the same or go down. If more people are covered there are less folx the hospitals have to take a loss on.
Lots of misinformation out there and the dems aren't doing enough to get the truth in front of the people.
That alone is why I take Nate Silver's prediction about the right taking back the senate very seriously.
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http://news.yahoo.com/cbo-says-obamacare-cost-less-191500438.html
CBO Says Obamacare Will Cost Less Than Projected
The White House is kicking off the week with some more good news for Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office said on Monday that the federal government will spend significantly less than expected on health insurance benefits under the new law.
The CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation said the law’s insurance coverage provisions will now cost about $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years — about $104 billion less than previously estimated. This year alone the government will spend $5 billion less than projected.
The CBO said lower spending on the health care law is helping shrink deficits overall. The report projected that federal government will run a deficit of $492 billion in 2014—nearly 33 percent less than last year. Even so, budget deficits are projected to rise again starting in 2016 and to top $1 trillion annually by 2023.
The agency credits the expected decrease in Obamacare spending to lower-than-anticipated premiums for plans offered on the exchanges. The CBO projects the price of annual premiums to rise slightly from an average of $3,800 this year for the second-lowest silver plan to $3,900 in 2015 and $4,400 in 2016. The agency expects premiums to keep rising, reaching $6,900 in 2024, for an average annual increase of 6 percent from 2016 to 2024.
The new projection for 2016 is 15 percent lower than CBO’s November 2009 estimate, which forecast that premiums for those benchmark plans would average $5,200.
Still, there is a downside to the lower costs, according to the report: “The plans being offered through exchanges in 2014 appear to have, in general, lower payment rates for providers, narrower networks of providers, and tighter management of their subscribers’ use of health care than employment-based plans do. Those features allow insurers that offer plans through the exchanges to charge lower premiums (although they also make plans somewhat less attractive to potential enrollees).”
CBO said it expects major provisions including the individual mandate —which requires people to have health insurance or pay a penalty — to offset total spending for Obamacare. Other major provisions like the employer mandate, which requires medium to large companies to cover their full-time workers, won’t take effect until next year, but will also play a large role in offsetting the costs of subsidies.
Aside from lower spending projections, the CBO said it expects more people to gain health coverage under the law. The report said in 2014 alone about 12 million people are expected to gain coverage through the federal and state exchanges as well as through the law’s Medicaid expansion.
It added that it projects 19 million people to have coverage under the law in 2015, and 25 million more by 2016. By 2024, the CBO says, about 89 percent of U.S. residents will have health coverage. That would leave some 31 million uninsured, which the CBO says is 26 million fewer than would lack coverage without Obamacare.
CBO Says Obamacare Will Cost Less Than Projected
The White House is kicking off the week with some more good news for Obamacare. The Congressional Budget Office said on Monday that the federal government will spend significantly less than expected on health insurance benefits under the new law.
The CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation said the law’s insurance coverage provisions will now cost about $1.4 trillion over the next 10 years — about $104 billion less than previously estimated. This year alone the government will spend $5 billion less than projected.
The CBO said lower spending on the health care law is helping shrink deficits overall. The report projected that federal government will run a deficit of $492 billion in 2014—nearly 33 percent less than last year. Even so, budget deficits are projected to rise again starting in 2016 and to top $1 trillion annually by 2023.
The agency credits the expected decrease in Obamacare spending to lower-than-anticipated premiums for plans offered on the exchanges. The CBO projects the price of annual premiums to rise slightly from an average of $3,800 this year for the second-lowest silver plan to $3,900 in 2015 and $4,400 in 2016. The agency expects premiums to keep rising, reaching $6,900 in 2024, for an average annual increase of 6 percent from 2016 to 2024.
The new projection for 2016 is 15 percent lower than CBO’s November 2009 estimate, which forecast that premiums for those benchmark plans would average $5,200.
Still, there is a downside to the lower costs, according to the report: “The plans being offered through exchanges in 2014 appear to have, in general, lower payment rates for providers, narrower networks of providers, and tighter management of their subscribers’ use of health care than employment-based plans do. Those features allow insurers that offer plans through the exchanges to charge lower premiums (although they also make plans somewhat less attractive to potential enrollees).”
CBO said it expects major provisions including the individual mandate —which requires people to have health insurance or pay a penalty — to offset total spending for Obamacare. Other major provisions like the employer mandate, which requires medium to large companies to cover their full-time workers, won’t take effect until next year, but will also play a large role in offsetting the costs of subsidies.
Aside from lower spending projections, the CBO said it expects more people to gain health coverage under the law. The report said in 2014 alone about 12 million people are expected to gain coverage through the federal and state exchanges as well as through the law’s Medicaid expansion.
It added that it projects 19 million people to have coverage under the law in 2015, and 25 million more by 2016. By 2024, the CBO says, about 89 percent of U.S. residents will have health coverage. That would leave some 31 million uninsured, which the CBO says is 26 million fewer than would lack coverage without Obamacare.
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Pretty obvious you just read the headline
Or he read the article and saw that there was far more positive news than negative.
If anyone comes up with a perfect plan with no downside for anyone, I'm willing to listen.
thoughtone has been on this board long enough. He just read the headline. At best he also made note of who posted it.
You should make it explicit that you're looking for the perfect plan that involves as much government dictate as possible. You don't need some grand plan to make insurance works. It's been a thing for a long time.
Peeps there has been NO debate in the "reality based" community about the Affordable Care Act also-known-as National Romney Care since Obama was elected in 2008 and announced that he wanted to enact some type of National Health Plan as his priority.
As I've pointed out numerous times over the past nine years; you have to separate "political rhetoric" (PROPAGANDA) aka DELIBERATE LIES from sober "reality based" facts. Just as I pointed out in 2010 in a post about CLIMATE CHANGE.
<blockquote>
Follow The $$$$$$$$$$ Money!!
Follow The $$$$$$$$$$ Money!!
Follow The $$$$$$$$$$ Money!!</blockquote>
As a money man following the money and analyzing WTF is going on is something I've been doing hours per day since 1979. In the "reality based" money $$$$$$$ community whether or not the Affordable Care Act would work as advertised was NEVER an issue; NEVER! Every investment conference I attended, which are rooms full of 80% white people, 75% Republicans, and all 'Acredited Investors' like myself - the only questions were, How do I invest to take advantage of Obamacare????
Below I post just one New York Stock Exchange, ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) that the "investor class" I describe above has had money invested in since 2009. The return on capital $$$$$$$$$$ speaks for itself.
As you assess the $$$$$$$$$$$ returns, think of the millions of clueless American sheeple who have ALL of their money sitting in a bank account earning less than 1.00% for the whole fucking year.
Are these 'knowledgeable' Americans bewildered that most Americans know nothing but bank accounts, CD's or a 401k mutual fund?? Yes, they assume incorrectly that many Americans know what they know.
If that's what I wanted, I would said that.
I said what I meant, you just have a hard time understanding that because you enjoy being purposely obtuse.
Find a way to get the masses affordable healthcare and I'm on board. If that's the private sector (which is a proven failure) so be it. If it's the total government control (which seems to work in other first world nations), I'm good with that. If it's a combination of both, I'm good with that.
Put up the ideas and let the people decide.
I read an article the other day, maybe on The Atlantic or maybe Politico
(wish I had posted it) about a Republican operative in support of ditching
ObamaCare who had looked diligently at ways to supplant it with something
else.
And, after much study, etc., he found a replacement.
Obamacare.
(wish I had posted it) about a Republican operative in support of ditching
ObamaCare who had looked diligently at ways to supplant it with something
else.
And, after much study, etc., he found a replacement.
Obamacare.
Amazing how the private sector is a proven failure with healthcare insurance isn't it?
I can't think of any other financial product that has permeated normal life more so than insurance. There's an insurance market for basically all physical goods and activities, but for some reason a viable healthcare market can't be achieved by the private sector. Guess it has nothing to do with the massive effort by government to get involved.
It's also amazing how you're not familiar with any other ideas. They just aren't out there I guess. For instance, since health insurance seems to be the only insurance market that's broken, then why not treat health insurance like every other type of insurance. But of course that would involve a retreat of government dictates, so therefore, that idea isn't out there. Of course the idea is out there and what we got shows the true value of letting "the people decide."
Which must have some validity because the only way to think about right or wrong is through the Republican/Democratic lens.
I know it's impossible to read every post. I know this.
But if you would stop wanting so hard to be obtuse and difficult and petulant, you would know that I suggested that here, maybe even in this thread but definitely on this board, years ago.
While the expansion of Medicaid and the consumer protections newly mandated are great and I wouldn't change one of them, we might not need the exchanges if they removed the anti trust exemptions health insurance providers have and forced them to compete like auto and home insurers.
That proposal was on the table but Republicans shot it down.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/here-s-who-obamacare-hurt-the-most-175034164.html
Obamacare hurt these people the most
As the dust settles following the tumultuous launch of the Affordable Care Act, many people are benefiting from the law, which, on balance, seems to be accomplishing its goal of providing health insurance for more Americans.
But a significant minority of Americans has ended up worse off under Obamacare, as the law is known, because policies they were happy with got canceled. Most of those people had purchased individual policies that didn’t meet new requirements under the law, so insurers were required to cancel them. People who lost coverage were free to purchase a new policy, but in many cases that was considerably more expensive.
A new study in the journal Health Affairs by Benjamin D. Sommers, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, provides fresh details on people who lost coverage on account of Obamacare, a group that may have totaled nearly 5 million Americans. But the majority of those people probably would have switched insurance anyway in 2014, even without the new law, according to the study. Most of them probably got new policies, so they're covered now. And many switchers who got a new policy through one of the healthcare exchanges set up under Obamacare probably got a better deal than they would have before the law.
"An unwanted change"
But there are three subsets of people whose policies were canceled and who are likely to end up as losers under Obamacare — people who are self-employed, over 35, white, or some combination of all three. People in this smaller group were far less likely to switch policies on their own, since they were generally happy with their coverage and less likely to change their employment status, one big reason people typically drop an individual policy. For this group, “cancellations related to the ACA represent an unwanted change in coverage options that may be quite disruptive,” the Health Affairs study concludes.
Jim Stadler, a 50-year-old freelance writer who lives outside Charlotte, N.C., got a notice from his insurer last fall saying his family’s policy would be canceled because it didn’t meet all the new requirements under the ACA. Stadler was happy with that policy, which kept costs down and provided access to good doctors. After several fits and starts, his insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, was able to offer a similar policy — but the premium rose from $411 per month to $540, a 32% increase. “I’m giving an insurance company money I could be spending on groceries or durable goods or other things,” says Stadler. “I’m paying more, and for what, I don’t know.”
It’s hard to pin down the number of people stuck in predicaments such as Stadler’s, but the Health Affairs study suggests about 3 million self-employed people had individual policies before Obamacare went into effect, with some of them losing insurance. A recent Rand survey found that the number of people who had individual policies last year but are uninsured this year is less than 1 million, on net. But that survey didn't reveal whether people gave up their policies because of Obamacare or some other reason. And since all these numbers measure different groups of people, it's hard to figure out exactly how many lost insurance because of Obamacare, and remain uninsured.
Whatever the number, it's a tiny portion of the roughly 200 million Americans covered by private insurance. Yet the furor over canceled policies last year had an outsized impact on public opinion toward Obamacare — which fell sharply right around the time cancellations were becoming big news. The flap even earned President Obama the most dubious distinction of his presidency: the “Lie of the Year” award from fact-checking site Politifact, for his claim that, if you like your insurance, you can keep it.
Higher premiums
The biggest Obamacare losers are people who lost their insurance but are unlikely to qualify for subsidies through one of the new exchanges, which require an income of less than $47,000 for an individual or $95,000 for a family of four. So they’re the ones who lost coverage and probably have to pay more for a new policy, even if they enroll through an exchange. Some people who lost coverage report paying twice as much for a new policy, or more.
It just so happens those demographic groups hurt most by Obamacare tend to be Obama’s political opponents. Whites are more likely to say they’re Republican than Democrat, by 34% to 28%. People under 35 — one group more likely to benefit from Obamacare — lean strongly toward the Democratic party, while that edge evens out among people over 35. And among small-business owners — a big chunk of people who consider themselves self-employed— Republicans outnumber Democrats by as much as 3 to 1. Stadler, for one, voted for Obama in 2012 but has since helped promote anti-Obamacare campaigns.
There’s no reason to think Obama and other backers of the ACA deliberately targeted Republicans when they made decisions that would determine winners and losers under the health reform law. It seems more likely Obamacare architects, thinking in broad, public-policy terms, simply failed to anticipate the firestorm that would erupt over canceled policies. To many of the law's drafters, the ACA would bring a net improvement in healthcare coverage. And those who ended up paying more, they reasoned, would be getting better insurance.
After the huge flap over canceled policies last year, Obama did reverse himself and said insurance companies can continue to offer non-compliant policies for a few more years. He also said people whose policies got canceled would not have to pay the fine in 2014 for violating the individual mandate.
That’s cold comfort to cancelees, however. Many insurance companies declined to reinstate canceled policies, and an exemption from this year’s fine still doesn’t compensate for affordable coverage that was lost. For them, the cure, so far, doesn’t seem much better than the disease
Obamacare hurt these people the most
As the dust settles following the tumultuous launch of the Affordable Care Act, many people are benefiting from the law, which, on balance, seems to be accomplishing its goal of providing health insurance for more Americans.
But a significant minority of Americans has ended up worse off under Obamacare, as the law is known, because policies they were happy with got canceled. Most of those people had purchased individual policies that didn’t meet new requirements under the law, so insurers were required to cancel them. People who lost coverage were free to purchase a new policy, but in many cases that was considerably more expensive.
A new study in the journal Health Affairs by Benjamin D. Sommers, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, provides fresh details on people who lost coverage on account of Obamacare, a group that may have totaled nearly 5 million Americans. But the majority of those people probably would have switched insurance anyway in 2014, even without the new law, according to the study. Most of them probably got new policies, so they're covered now. And many switchers who got a new policy through one of the healthcare exchanges set up under Obamacare probably got a better deal than they would have before the law.
"An unwanted change"
But there are three subsets of people whose policies were canceled and who are likely to end up as losers under Obamacare — people who are self-employed, over 35, white, or some combination of all three. People in this smaller group were far less likely to switch policies on their own, since they were generally happy with their coverage and less likely to change their employment status, one big reason people typically drop an individual policy. For this group, “cancellations related to the ACA represent an unwanted change in coverage options that may be quite disruptive,” the Health Affairs study concludes.
Jim Stadler, a 50-year-old freelance writer who lives outside Charlotte, N.C., got a notice from his insurer last fall saying his family’s policy would be canceled because it didn’t meet all the new requirements under the ACA. Stadler was happy with that policy, which kept costs down and provided access to good doctors. After several fits and starts, his insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, was able to offer a similar policy — but the premium rose from $411 per month to $540, a 32% increase. “I’m giving an insurance company money I could be spending on groceries or durable goods or other things,” says Stadler. “I’m paying more, and for what, I don’t know.”
It’s hard to pin down the number of people stuck in predicaments such as Stadler’s, but the Health Affairs study suggests about 3 million self-employed people had individual policies before Obamacare went into effect, with some of them losing insurance. A recent Rand survey found that the number of people who had individual policies last year but are uninsured this year is less than 1 million, on net. But that survey didn't reveal whether people gave up their policies because of Obamacare or some other reason. And since all these numbers measure different groups of people, it's hard to figure out exactly how many lost insurance because of Obamacare, and remain uninsured.
Whatever the number, it's a tiny portion of the roughly 200 million Americans covered by private insurance. Yet the furor over canceled policies last year had an outsized impact on public opinion toward Obamacare — which fell sharply right around the time cancellations were becoming big news. The flap even earned President Obama the most dubious distinction of his presidency: the “Lie of the Year” award from fact-checking site Politifact, for his claim that, if you like your insurance, you can keep it.
Higher premiums
The biggest Obamacare losers are people who lost their insurance but are unlikely to qualify for subsidies through one of the new exchanges, which require an income of less than $47,000 for an individual or $95,000 for a family of four. So they’re the ones who lost coverage and probably have to pay more for a new policy, even if they enroll through an exchange. Some people who lost coverage report paying twice as much for a new policy, or more.
It just so happens those demographic groups hurt most by Obamacare tend to be Obama’s political opponents. Whites are more likely to say they’re Republican than Democrat, by 34% to 28%. People under 35 — one group more likely to benefit from Obamacare — lean strongly toward the Democratic party, while that edge evens out among people over 35. And among small-business owners — a big chunk of people who consider themselves self-employed— Republicans outnumber Democrats by as much as 3 to 1. Stadler, for one, voted for Obama in 2012 but has since helped promote anti-Obamacare campaigns.
There’s no reason to think Obama and other backers of the ACA deliberately targeted Republicans when they made decisions that would determine winners and losers under the health reform law. It seems more likely Obamacare architects, thinking in broad, public-policy terms, simply failed to anticipate the firestorm that would erupt over canceled policies. To many of the law's drafters, the ACA would bring a net improvement in healthcare coverage. And those who ended up paying more, they reasoned, would be getting better insurance.
After the huge flap over canceled policies last year, Obama did reverse himself and said insurance companies can continue to offer non-compliant policies for a few more years. He also said people whose policies got canceled would not have to pay the fine in 2014 for violating the individual mandate.
That’s cold comfort to cancelees, however. Many insurance companies declined to reinstate canceled policies, and an exemption from this year’s fine still doesn’t compensate for affordable coverage that was lost. For them, the cure, so far, doesn’t seem much better than the disease
I may remember you mentioning it in the "Bitter Pill" thread. But so what. You want to express how you think treating health insurance like every other insurance is a good thing, but then embrace the ACA which does the opposite.
That and your insistence to blame Republican for that bad law shows you're just worried about sides. The Democrats were responsible for the entire law which means they also shot down the concept you're supposedly in favor of. Now what.
Once Opposed To ObamaCare, Now A Convert
Political odd couple: Dean Angstadt (left) opposed Obamacare until his friend
Bob Leinhauser persuaded him to sign up just in time for life-saving heart surgery.
<font face="arial unicode ms, verdana, helvetica" size="3" color="#000000">
<b><font color="660066">by Robert Calandra | April 28, 2014</b> |</font>
Dean Angstadt fells trees for a living.
He's a self-employed, self-sufficient logger who has cleared his own path for most of his 57 years, never expecting help from anyone. And even though he'd been uninsured since 2009, he especially wanted nothing to do with the Affordable Care Act.
"I don't read what the Democrats have to say about it because I think they're full of it," he told his friend Bob Leinhauser, who suggested he sign up.
That refrain changed this year when a faulty aortic valve almost felled Angstadt. Suddenly, he was facing a choice: Buy a health plan, through a law he despised, that would pay the lion's share of the cost of the life-saving surgery - or die. He chose the former.
"A lot of people I talk to are so misinformed about the ACA," Angstadt said. "I was, before Bob went through all this for me. I would recommend it to anybody and, in fact, have encouraged friends, including the one guy who hauls my logs."
In 2011, Angstadt had a pacemaker and defibrillator implanted to help his ailing heart pump more efficiently. Not long after, the almost 6-foot, 285-pound man's man was back in the woods, doing the Paul Bunyan thing.
But last summer, his health worsened again. It was taking him 10 minutes to catch his breath after felling a tree. By fall, he was winded after traveling the 50 feet between his house and truck.
"I knew that I was really sick," said the Boyertown resident. "I figured the doctors were going to have to operate, so I tried to work as long as I could to save money for the surgery. But it got to the point where I couldn't work."
Angstadt called Leinhauser. The political odd couple talked a bit before Angstadt mentioned he was having trouble breathing.
Leinhauser, 55, a retired firefighter and nurse, drove him to a doctor's office. "Dean only saw a doctor when he needed to because it made a big difference in his finances," Leinhauser said.
From time to time, Leinhauser would urge Angstadt to buy a plan through the ACA marketplace. And each time, Angstadt refused.
"We argued about it for months," Angstadt said. "I didn't trust this Obamacare. One of the big reasons is it sounded too good to be true."
January came, and Angstadt's health continued to decline. His doctor made it clear he urgently needed valve-replacement surgery. Leinhauser had seen enough and insisted his friend get insured.
"The only thing he was ever really adamant about was that Obamacare was the real deal," Angstadt said. "I trusted him to at least take a look at it."
Leinhauser went to Angstadt's house, and in less than an hour, the duo had done the application. A day later, Angstadt signed up for the Highmark Blue Cross silver PPO plan and paid his first monthly premium: $26.11.
"All of a sudden, I'm getting notification from Highmark, and I got my card, and it was actually all legitimate," he said. "I could have done backflips if I was in better shape."
Angstadt's plan kicked in on March 1. It was just in time. Surgery couldn't be put off any longer. On March 31, Angstadt had life-saving valve-replacement surgery.
"I probably would have ended up falling over dead" without the surgery, Angstadt said. "Not only did it save my life, it's going to give me a better quality of life."
Angstadt faces a long recovery, but his conversion to ACA supporter is done. The political storm around the ACA, he said, is the political parties "fighting each other over things that can benefit people."
"For me, this isn't about politics," he added. "I'm trying to help other people who are like me, stubborn and bullheaded, who refused to even look. From my own experience, the ACA is everything it's supposed to be and, in fact, better than it's made out to be."
He has also thanked his good friend, Leinhauser, for caring enough to persuade him to buy insurance and have the surgery.
"He has thanked me a couple times," Leinhauser said. "I just wish he would reciprocate by eating his green beans."
https://web.archive.org/web/2016012...1_1_health-plan-obamacare-life-saving-surgery
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<hr noshade color="#FF0000" size="10"></hr>
<blockquote>
So why did he resist enrolling in ObamaCare for so long? As he explained to the Washington Post's Erik Wemple, <span style="background-color: #FFFF00">he's a Fox News guy who trusted Republicans' dire warnings about the law.</span></blockquote>
<img src="http://leaksource.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/fox-lies-constantly.png" width="300">
<hr noshade color="#ff0000" size="10"></hr>
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source: Salon
GOP candidates’ freak-out moment: As Obamacare horror stories flop, what’s left?
Candidates like Scott Brown thought they'd win by attacking health reform. Looks like it's time to recalibrate fast
Rick Scott, Scott Brown
It feels strange to say this, and maybe a bit premature, but we seem to be past the era of the viral Obamacare victim story.
Everyone who has followed the politics of the Affordable Care Act can tell you the saga of Julie Boonstra, the Michigan woman who bemoaned the financial injustice done to her by the health law in an Americans for Prosperity ad, when in reality she’s going to save a lot of money with her new insurance. Boonstra’s story, amplified by the conservative media, went national, as did the subsequent debunking of the AFP advertisement.
But how many people know who Christopher Schiff is? Schiff, a Marine veteran, stars in this Americans for Prosperity ad attacking Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., claiming that his “insurance costs are going way up because of Obamacare.”
<IFRAME height=315 src="//www.youtube.com/embed/aCjqlu_NxaE?rel=0" frameBorder=0 width=560></IFRAME>
The ad was released last week. In that time Schiff has appeared on Fox News and his story has drawn fleeting attention from the right-wing press, but overall no one has really taken notice of the former Marine allegedly under fire from Obamacare. (The Washington Post and PolitiFact attempted to verify Schiff’s claims, but neither was able to confirm his health coverage status; PolitiFact warned his ad “doesn’t include some important context and nuances.”)
At the same time the political world was generally ignoring Christopher Schiff, it was taking increasing notice of Dean Angstadt, a self-employed logger who, with the coaching of a liberal friend, moved past his hostility to Obamacare and purchased a health plan just in time for heart valve replacement surgery. Angstadt’s story is an ACA supporter’s Holy Grail – a hard-nosed opponent of Obamacare who saw the light after it literally saved his life. “The ACA is everything it’s supposed to be and, in fact, better than it’s made out to be,” Angstadt told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
There’s actually been a steady trickle of these sorts of stories that are starting to break through the gloom-and-doom coverage of the Affordable Care Act. Scott Brown, running for Senate in New Hampshire with a “repeal Obamacare” message, caught an earful from a Republican state representative who’d had his monthly premiums slashed by the ACA. Florida’s embattled Republican governor, Rick Scott, recently visited a senior center to fish for Obamacare horror stories to relate on the campaign trail, but instead found “a satisfied group with few complaints.” NPR reported this week on Obamacare enrollees who, free from the threat of losing health coverage, quit jobs they hated to start their own businesses.
After months of watching the press obsess over “rate shocks” and sensationalist stories about skyrocketing premiums and an endless parade of (usually bogus) tales of victimhood, we’re starting to see positive ACA stories break through the noise and take on a life of their own. This boomlet of positive coverage is happening at the same time as the once-reliable avenues for conservatives to attack the ACA start to disappear. As a result, conservatives have to find new and even less honest ways to go after the law.
Yesterday’s Commerce Department report that the economy grew at a barely twitching 0.1 percent annualized rate in the first quarter of 2014 was met with unseemly enthusiasm by Republicans and conservatives. There was one data point buried in the report that Obamacare critics seized on: Health spending grew by 9.9 percent in the first quarter.
The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein wrote that “health care spending spiked by a staggering 9.9 percent” and noted that “Obamacare was pitched as a plan to reduce health care spending.” (Klein later put together a second post that had a chart because, you know, charts.) The Weekly Standard opined that the “rise in costs and rate of growth calls into question claims from supporters of the federal health care law, including President Obama, who claimed Obamacare would ‘bend the cost curve’ and slow down the rate of growth in health care spending.” Townhall.com’s Conn Carroll wrote that “all pretense that Obamacare would lower health care costs has been destroyed.”
Destroyed! Really? Not quite. Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Post calmly and patiently explains (also with charts) that this spike in health spending was predicted to happen by just about everyone, given that a whole lot more people have health insurance now than did last year. “What happened from January through March? The crazy-high prices Americans pay for health care didn’t change much. Mainly, it seems that more people went to the doctor.”
It turns out that Americans really, really like having access to affordable healthcare, and when they finally get it, they use it. As Young notes, the actuaries for Medicare and Medicaid anticipate that the rate of increase in health spending will dip back down to normal levels after this burst of enthusiasm.
And thus another conservative argument against Obamacare dies before it even gets a chance at life. It’s part of an emerging recalibration in ACA coverage that should make supporters happy and leave critics nervous.
GOP candidates’ freak-out moment: As Obamacare horror stories flop, what’s left?
Candidates like Scott Brown thought they'd win by attacking health reform. Looks like it's time to recalibrate fast
Rick Scott, Scott Brown
It feels strange to say this, and maybe a bit premature, but we seem to be past the era of the viral Obamacare victim story.
Everyone who has followed the politics of the Affordable Care Act can tell you the saga of Julie Boonstra, the Michigan woman who bemoaned the financial injustice done to her by the health law in an Americans for Prosperity ad, when in reality she’s going to save a lot of money with her new insurance. Boonstra’s story, amplified by the conservative media, went national, as did the subsequent debunking of the AFP advertisement.
But how many people know who Christopher Schiff is? Schiff, a Marine veteran, stars in this Americans for Prosperity ad attacking Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., claiming that his “insurance costs are going way up because of Obamacare.”
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The ad was released last week. In that time Schiff has appeared on Fox News and his story has drawn fleeting attention from the right-wing press, but overall no one has really taken notice of the former Marine allegedly under fire from Obamacare. (The Washington Post and PolitiFact attempted to verify Schiff’s claims, but neither was able to confirm his health coverage status; PolitiFact warned his ad “doesn’t include some important context and nuances.”)
At the same time the political world was generally ignoring Christopher Schiff, it was taking increasing notice of Dean Angstadt, a self-employed logger who, with the coaching of a liberal friend, moved past his hostility to Obamacare and purchased a health plan just in time for heart valve replacement surgery. Angstadt’s story is an ACA supporter’s Holy Grail – a hard-nosed opponent of Obamacare who saw the light after it literally saved his life. “The ACA is everything it’s supposed to be and, in fact, better than it’s made out to be,” Angstadt told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
There’s actually been a steady trickle of these sorts of stories that are starting to break through the gloom-and-doom coverage of the Affordable Care Act. Scott Brown, running for Senate in New Hampshire with a “repeal Obamacare” message, caught an earful from a Republican state representative who’d had his monthly premiums slashed by the ACA. Florida’s embattled Republican governor, Rick Scott, recently visited a senior center to fish for Obamacare horror stories to relate on the campaign trail, but instead found “a satisfied group with few complaints.” NPR reported this week on Obamacare enrollees who, free from the threat of losing health coverage, quit jobs they hated to start their own businesses.
After months of watching the press obsess over “rate shocks” and sensationalist stories about skyrocketing premiums and an endless parade of (usually bogus) tales of victimhood, we’re starting to see positive ACA stories break through the noise and take on a life of their own. This boomlet of positive coverage is happening at the same time as the once-reliable avenues for conservatives to attack the ACA start to disappear. As a result, conservatives have to find new and even less honest ways to go after the law.
Yesterday’s Commerce Department report that the economy grew at a barely twitching 0.1 percent annualized rate in the first quarter of 2014 was met with unseemly enthusiasm by Republicans and conservatives. There was one data point buried in the report that Obamacare critics seized on: Health spending grew by 9.9 percent in the first quarter.
The Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein wrote that “health care spending spiked by a staggering 9.9 percent” and noted that “Obamacare was pitched as a plan to reduce health care spending.” (Klein later put together a second post that had a chart because, you know, charts.) The Weekly Standard opined that the “rise in costs and rate of growth calls into question claims from supporters of the federal health care law, including President Obama, who claimed Obamacare would ‘bend the cost curve’ and slow down the rate of growth in health care spending.” Townhall.com’s Conn Carroll wrote that “all pretense that Obamacare would lower health care costs has been destroyed.”
Destroyed! Really? Not quite. Jeffrey Young of the Huffington Post calmly and patiently explains (also with charts) that this spike in health spending was predicted to happen by just about everyone, given that a whole lot more people have health insurance now than did last year. “What happened from January through March? The crazy-high prices Americans pay for health care didn’t change much. Mainly, it seems that more people went to the doctor.”
It turns out that Americans really, really like having access to affordable healthcare, and when they finally get it, they use it. As Young notes, the actuaries for Medicare and Medicaid anticipate that the rate of increase in health spending will dip back down to normal levels after this burst of enthusiasm.
And thus another conservative argument against Obamacare dies before it even gets a chance at life. It’s part of an emerging recalibration in ACA coverage that should make supporters happy and leave critics nervous.
McClatchy Washington Bureau
June 27, 2014
A new report from the Obama administration finds that <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">women saved more than $483 million on prescriptions for oral contraceptives last year</span>, thanks to an Affordable Care Act provision that requires certain medications to be covered at no cost to plan members.
Friday's report from the Department of Health and Human Services comes as the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to rule on the constitutionality of a health law requirement that for-profit corporations cover birth control for women under employee health insurance plans.
The health law allows non-profit religious organizations to forego the coverage if they have religious objections.
But in the so-called "Hobby Lobby" case, for-profit employers are challenging the health law's contraceptive coverage requirement, saying it violates their rights of religious freedom under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Friday's report from HHS shows that the number of prescriptions for oral contraceptives with no co-pays increased by 24.4 million from 2012 to 2013, due mainly to the health law's zero-cost sharing provisions for certain preventative services, according to a recent report by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics.
The HHS report also estimated that 76 million Americans benefitted from new coverage for expanded preventative services under the health law.
“Today’s findings are just one more indicator that the Affordable Care Act is delivering impact for millions of people nationwide,” said HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell. “Seventy-six million is more than just a number. For millions of Americans, it means no longer having to put off a mammogram for an extra year. Or it means catching a problem early enough that it’s treatable.”
Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2014/06/27/231796/prescriptions-for-contraceptives.html#storylink=cpy
The Study here: http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/2014/PreventiveServices/ib_PreventiveServices.pdf
First off hobby lobby can eat a bag of dicks those contrary bastards.....How are you claiming to be so religious and all that shit but your 401k package invests in companies that produce pills, equipment, etc that's used in abortions??
Secondly all the bad stuff they said initially about the ACA is slowly going down the drain. This is why they didn't want the shit out there because they KNEW it would be helpful and they knew once people got it there no way in hell to repeal it.
Did anyone post about Sodexo and their fuckery?!!!??!
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
Secondly all the bad stuff they said initially about the ACA is slowly going down the drain. This is why they didn't want the shit out there because they KNEW it would be helpful and they knew once people got it there no way in hell to repeal it.
Did anyone post about Sodexo and their fuckery?!!!??!
Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
The verdict is in:
Obamacare lowers uninsured
A survey by the Commonwealth Fund found that 9.5 million fewer adults are uninsured
p o l i t i c o
July 11, 2014
The evidence is piling up now: Obamacare really does seem to be helping the uninsured.
Survey after survey is showing that the number of uninsured people has been going down since the start of enrollment last fall. The numbers don’t all match, and health care experts say they’re not precise enough to give more than a general idea of the trend.
But by now, the trend is unmistakable: Millions of people who didn’t have health insurance before the Affordable Care Act have gained it since last fall. The law is not just covering people who already had health coverage, but adding new people to the ranks of the insured — which was the point of the law all along.
There’s still a lot of variation in the numbers, too much for health care experts to pin down an exact number with any confidence. <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">But even health care analysts who think the law is a bad idea acknowledge that the evidence suggests the uninsured are being helped. Given the predictions of doom that accompanied the law’s passage and launch, that’s a sweet bit of vindication for the president and ACA supporters.</span>
“It will be better when we’ve got a whole year behind us, so we can tell how much [in the surveys] was noise and how much was reality,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the conservative American Action Forum, a frequent critic of the law. “Having said that, it sure looks like there are more people covered, and that’s a good thing.”
A survey by the Commonwealth Fund found that 9.5 million fewer adults are uninsured now than at the beginning of the Obamacare enrollment season. The Urban Institute’s Health Reform Monitoring Survey found a similar drop, with 8 million adults gaining coverage. And Gallup-Healthways survey reported that the uninsured rate has fallen to 13.4 percent of adults, the lowest level since it began tracking health coverage in 2008.
That was all on Thursday. In recent months, other surveys in the Gallup series have consistently found the same downward trend, and a RAND survey in April estimated that the law extended health coverage to 9.3 million Americans.
That’s not going to end the fights over the health care law — not even close. Republicans say the debate isn’t just about whether the law has helped uninsured people, but about all the side effects, like canceled health plans, higher premiums for some people with individual health insurance, reduced work hours for part-time employees, and the long-term costs to the nation.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who led the battle to defund the law last fall and could fight it again on the presidential campaign trail in 2016, insists the new surveys don’t change the debate at all — because the real issue, in his view, is still the disruption of the canceled plans and higher premiums.
“Four years ago, before the law was implemented, it was possible to have good-faith disagreements about whether the law would work,” Cruz told POLITICO on Thursday. “Today, seeing the utter disaster that has played out … to me, it is the essence of pragmatism to realize that the law isn’t working, and to repeal it and start over.”
And even though the law’s performance has stabilized since the clumsy rollout last fall, there are plenty of ways the side effects could still flare up again — through big premium increases for next year (they’ve been modest so far), another possible round of canceled plans and the potential for angry customers next year if they’ve received too much in subsidies and have to pay them back.
“The Republican argument was never that a trillion or two dollars would never cover any more uninsured. It was that the cost of doing so in higher health care costs and premiums, cancelled policies, increased government control of health care, and a myriad other negatives—were not worth it,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.” That argument still holds.”
But the latest surveys have been a huge morale boost for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, who now have armfuls of statistics to prove that the law is doing what it’s supposed to do: help the uninsured.
July 11, 2014
The evidence is piling up now: Obamacare really does seem to be helping the uninsured.
Survey after survey is showing that the number of uninsured people has been going down since the start of enrollment last fall. The numbers don’t all match, and health care experts say they’re not precise enough to give more than a general idea of the trend.
But by now, the trend is unmistakable: Millions of people who didn’t have health insurance before the Affordable Care Act have gained it since last fall. The law is not just covering people who already had health coverage, but adding new people to the ranks of the insured — which was the point of the law all along.
There’s still a lot of variation in the numbers, too much for health care experts to pin down an exact number with any confidence. <SPAN style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffff00">But even health care analysts who think the law is a bad idea acknowledge that the evidence suggests the uninsured are being helped. Given the predictions of doom that accompanied the law’s passage and launch, that’s a sweet bit of vindication for the president and ACA supporters.</span>
“It will be better when we’ve got a whole year behind us, so we can tell how much [in the surveys] was noise and how much was reality,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the conservative American Action Forum, a frequent critic of the law. “Having said that, it sure looks like there are more people covered, and that’s a good thing.”
A survey by the Commonwealth Fund found that 9.5 million fewer adults are uninsured now than at the beginning of the Obamacare enrollment season. The Urban Institute’s Health Reform Monitoring Survey found a similar drop, with 8 million adults gaining coverage. And Gallup-Healthways survey reported that the uninsured rate has fallen to 13.4 percent of adults, the lowest level since it began tracking health coverage in 2008.
That was all on Thursday. In recent months, other surveys in the Gallup series have consistently found the same downward trend, and a RAND survey in April estimated that the law extended health coverage to 9.3 million Americans.
That’s not going to end the fights over the health care law — not even close. Republicans say the debate isn’t just about whether the law has helped uninsured people, but about all the side effects, like canceled health plans, higher premiums for some people with individual health insurance, reduced work hours for part-time employees, and the long-term costs to the nation.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who led the battle to defund the law last fall and could fight it again on the presidential campaign trail in 2016, insists the new surveys don’t change the debate at all — because the real issue, in his view, is still the disruption of the canceled plans and higher premiums.
“Four years ago, before the law was implemented, it was possible to have good-faith disagreements about whether the law would work,” Cruz told POLITICO on Thursday. “Today, seeing the utter disaster that has played out … to me, it is the essence of pragmatism to realize that the law isn’t working, and to repeal it and start over.”
And even though the law’s performance has stabilized since the clumsy rollout last fall, there are plenty of ways the side effects could still flare up again — through big premium increases for next year (they’ve been modest so far), another possible round of canceled plans and the potential for angry customers next year if they’ve received too much in subsidies and have to pay them back.
“The Republican argument was never that a trillion or two dollars would never cover any more uninsured. It was that the cost of doing so in higher health care costs and premiums, cancelled policies, increased government control of health care, and a myriad other negatives—were not worth it,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres.” That argument still holds.”
But the latest surveys have been a huge morale boost for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats, who now have armfuls of statistics to prove that the law is doing what it’s supposed to do: help the uninsured.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/07/obamacare-lowers-uninsured-108789.html#ixzz37Cij5jWg
As of today (July 15, 2014) 11:27AM VHT now trading at 112.
That's 9% on your money since I brought it to you peeps attention on April 17, 2014
READ:http://www.bgol.us/board/showpost.php?p=14235929&postcount=256
For those of you who don't understand this stuff it means that on $100,000 you made $9,000 since April 17, 2014
As inevitably the RepubliKlan states that are resisting medicare expansion solely for racist political reasons get dragged into the civilized "reality based" world this ETF will go higher
ObamaCare's Depressing Red--Blue Divide
Conservative State Officials Are Denying Their Constituents Healthcare
New Republic
By Jonathan Cohn
July 21, 2014
Millions of Americans are getting health insurance because of Obamacare. But you’re a lot less likely to be among them if you live in one of the “red” states than if you live in one of the “blue” states—and there’s no great mystery why.
It’s because the conservative officials who run most of the red states want it that way.
You can see that pattern clearly in new reports on the Affordable Care Act that became available last week. They come from surveys demonstrating that the law is thinning the ranks of the uninsured across the country. But two of the reports—one from the Commonwealth Fund, the other from the Urban Institute—broke down the data by state and found a striking, if predictable, disparity.
Officials in states like California, Maryland, and Michigan have done just what Obamacare called upon them to do. They have opted to expand their Medicaid programs, so that all low-income people are eligible. Officials in other states, including Florida, Missouri, and Texas, have refused to expand their programs. To be eligible for Medicaid in one of those states, you have to fall into a special category, like low-income pregnant women, who were eligible before.
<iframe width="850" height="900" src="http://www.newrepublic.com/sites/default/files/u18524/urban_uninsured.png" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Obamacare's Medicaid expansion and the uninsured by state
Source: The Urban Institute
In states that have made Medicaid universally available to the poor, the Urban Institute’s researchers found, the proportion of non-elderly adults without coverage fell by 6.4 percentage points between the second quarter of 2013 and the second quarter of 2014. In states that have not modified Medicaid, the rate fell by just 2.8 percentage points over the same time interval. These surveys aren't that precise, particularly when it comes to state-level data. But the pattern makes perfect sense.
And here’s what makes those figures even more depressing. The states where officials are blocking expansion are the ones where residents need help the most, because they are poorer and more likely to have no insurance in the first place.
These sorts of disparities are nothing new. The residents of blue states tend to be wealthier and healthier than the residents of red states. They also benefit from more generous public programs. Conservatives insist that red states are making the right choice on Medicaid—because expanding the program would require officials to increase the size government, the program doesn't work as well as it should, and so on. But it's hard to see how the people living in those states are actually better off.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/...ts-have-dropped-more-blue-states-red-medicaid
source: TPM
The Obamacare Headline That The GOP Doesn't Want You To See
The headlines were all too predictable when Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield announced in June that it would request an average 12.5 percent premium increase for its Connecticut market. "Now EVEN MORE States Report Double-Digit Premium Hikes," the conservative Daily Caller trumpeted.
But that wasn't the whole story. It never is with Obamacare premium news, though that hasn't stopped news outlets from blaring headlines like that one from the Daily Caller whenever an insurance company announces its proposed rates for next year. Skyrocketing premiums are one of the last anti-Obamacare talking points that conservatives have to hold onto.
But then on Monday, the conclusion of the Connecticut story came. State insurance regulators had rejected Anthem's proposed 12.5 percent premium hike. So after some revisions, the company would instead lower its premiums ever so slightly on average -- 0.1 percent -- in 2015, the Connecticut Mirror reported.
That's right. Obamacare premiums in Connecticut are going down, not up. That news doesn't appear to have earned any attention yet from the Daily Caller. We'll keep an eye out.
Connecticut is yet another reminder that the news on Obamacare premiums is more complicated than some of the media coverage would have you believe. Not only are consumers mostly protected from any actual rate increases by federal subsidies, but the proposed rate increases are routinely subject to approval from state insurance regulators.
"Premium increases for exchange plans have been modest in most places, based on public reports so far," Larry Levitt, vice president at the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told TPM in an email. "But even the increases we’ve heard about generally represent proposed rates that may not be the last word once state regulators finalize their reviews."
About half of state insurance regulators have historically had the authority to reject some types of premium increases, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. On top of that historic authority, Obamacare gives state and federal regulators the ability to demand a justification from an insurer for any proposed rate increase greater than 10 percent.
Those levers ultimately drove down the proposed increase in Connecticut and should warn against taking initial 2015 filings at face value. They are newsworthy because they presumably reflect insurers' experiences with the law in its first year. But they aren't the last word on what will actually happen to the prices being paid by consumers.
The Obamacare Headline That The GOP Doesn't Want You To See
The headlines were all too predictable when Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield announced in June that it would request an average 12.5 percent premium increase for its Connecticut market. "Now EVEN MORE States Report Double-Digit Premium Hikes," the conservative Daily Caller trumpeted.
But that wasn't the whole story. It never is with Obamacare premium news, though that hasn't stopped news outlets from blaring headlines like that one from the Daily Caller whenever an insurance company announces its proposed rates for next year. Skyrocketing premiums are one of the last anti-Obamacare talking points that conservatives have to hold onto.
But then on Monday, the conclusion of the Connecticut story came. State insurance regulators had rejected Anthem's proposed 12.5 percent premium hike. So after some revisions, the company would instead lower its premiums ever so slightly on average -- 0.1 percent -- in 2015, the Connecticut Mirror reported.
That's right. Obamacare premiums in Connecticut are going down, not up. That news doesn't appear to have earned any attention yet from the Daily Caller. We'll keep an eye out.
Connecticut is yet another reminder that the news on Obamacare premiums is more complicated than some of the media coverage would have you believe. Not only are consumers mostly protected from any actual rate increases by federal subsidies, but the proposed rate increases are routinely subject to approval from state insurance regulators.
"Premium increases for exchange plans have been modest in most places, based on public reports so far," Larry Levitt, vice president at the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told TPM in an email. "But even the increases we’ve heard about generally represent proposed rates that may not be the last word once state regulators finalize their reviews."
About half of state insurance regulators have historically had the authority to reject some types of premium increases, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. On top of that historic authority, Obamacare gives state and federal regulators the ability to demand a justification from an insurer for any proposed rate increase greater than 10 percent.
Those levers ultimately drove down the proposed increase in Connecticut and should warn against taking initial 2015 filings at face value. They are newsworthy because they presumably reflect insurers' experiences with the law in its first year. But they aren't the last word on what will actually happen to the prices being paid by consumers.
Another ‘Red’ State Admits They Were WRONG About Obamacare, Quietly Accepts Medicaid Expansion
August 29, 2014 |
http://aattp.org/another-red-state-...obamacare-quietly-accepts-medicaid-expansion/
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2014/August/29/medicaid-expansion.aspx
<hr noshade color="#0000ff" size="6"></hr>
Following Pennsylvania this week, Tennessee another red state led by a RepubliKlan governor, has also reached a deal with the Obama administration, to expand Medicaid for low income residents. This deal follows RepubliKlan states Arkansas, Iowa and other red states whose RepubliKlan leadership were wailing like screeching banshee's about the evil, communist, socialist, job-killing Obamacare; all brazen lies designed to appease a feebleminded republiklan base.
Meanwhile individuals in the reality based world have known all along that eventually, the recalcitrant red republiklan states would join Obamacare's Medicaid expansion; and they have made $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ money on this reality.
The ETF VHT now trading at 117.17 and as more RepubliKlan states drop like dominos discreetly signing up for Obamacare's Medicaid expansion, without a press conference, we will see VHT and other investment vehicles that reflect 'Health-Care-Mafia' businesses continue to rise in price and investors will continue to $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ profit.
Meanwhile the clueless tea baggers will continue to scream about the danger America faces with Obama's communist, socialist, Kenyan mau-mau, death panels health care.
As of today (July 15, 2014) 11:27AM VHT now trading at 112.
That's 9% on your money since I brought it to you peeps attention on April 17, 2014
READ:http://www.bgol.us/board/showpost.php?p=14235929&postcount=256
For those of you who don't understand this stuff it means that on $100,000 you made $9,000 since April 17, 2014
<span style="background-color:yellow;">As inevitably the RepubliKlan states that are resisting medicare expansion solely for racist political reasons get dragged into the civilized "reality based" world this ETF will go higher </span>
Falling Like Dominoes: Red-state Govs Expanding Obamacare
Justin Green, writing in the conservative Washington Examiner, noted over the
weekend that the Republican fight against Medicaid expansion may soon be “over.”
weekend that the Republican fight against Medicaid expansion may soon be “over.”
by Steve Benen | September 2, 2014 |http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/falling-dominoes-red-state-govs-expanding-obamacare
As of a week ago, about half of the nation’s states had embraced Medicaid expansion through the Affordable Care Act, while the other half seemed to be motivated almost entirely out of partisan spite. But in recent days, there’s been a burst of unexpected activity on this issue.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) struck a deal with the Obama administration that will allow Medicaid expansion to cover another half-million low-income Americans in the Keystone State. A day later, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) said he expects to follow suit in the coming weeks.
Ruby-red Wyoming generally resists any voluntary federal program, but it, too, is starting to come around on Medicaid expansion. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), a fierce “Obamacare” critic, recently did the same.
And even Utah is moving forward with its Medicaid-expansion plans, though not without an unintentionally amusing debate.
Utah’s health care debate took an unexpected turn at the State Capitol, where a lawmaker who is also a doctor argued that access to health care can be a bad thing.
Representative Mike Kennedy, a Republican from Alpine, made the comments in a Health Reform Task Force meeting, in reaction to a story from another doctor…. “Sometimes access actually can mean harm,” said Representative Mike Kennedy, a family physician.
I’ve followed this debate closely for quite a while, and I have to admit, this is the first time I’ve seen an elected official argue – out loud and on purpose – that medical care may be bad for people. But in this case, a Utah state Republican and physician tried to defeat Medicaid expansion by sincerely making the case that hospitals can make Americans sicker.
“Sometimes access to health care can be damaging and dangerous,” the GOP lawmaker said. “And it’s a perspective for the [Legislative] body to consider is that, I’ve heard from National Institutes of Health and otherwise that we’re killing up to a million, a million and a half people every year in our hospitals. And it’s access to hospitals that’s killing those people.”
Ridiculous arguments notwithstanding, there is a larger trend here that’s hard to overlook.
Justin Green, writing in the conservative Washington Examiner, noted over the weekend that the Republican fight against Medicaid expansion may soon be “over.”
“[T]he trend is quite clear: Red states are gradually accepting Obamacare, and no states are reversing their decisions,” Green said.
To date, 10 Republican governors have embraced this ACA policy, but that total is slowly growing as the arithmetic becomes increasingly undeniable.
In time to have a positive impact upon the 14' midterms ???
Your thoughts.
I'm of the mind that this is all about the midterms as more Democrats are running on the ACA and not from it. It's not a good time for a Republican to have to defend the decision to not expand Medicaid even though the taxpayers of their state are paying for it.
There is no fiscally conservative argument to back that and states aren't as red or blue in local/state elections as they are in presidential elections.
Not a peep on this subject in a while from the usual subjects.
Not a peep on this subject in a while from the usual subjects.
What do you want to see posted?
Tell me which of these two article (that you don't give a shit about anyway) should I post?
"Pace of health care spending likely to speed up"
OR
"U.S. healthcare spending growth to slow further"
I'll leave it to you to decide.