JFlorio wrote:
We will never agree on the ACA. It was designed so young, healthy and more affluent people would have a choice. Pay outrageous, on the average 6x more than they could receive, with out of pocket expenditures that basically made many of the coverage's worthless, or as you like to say junk. So, many chose the fine. which you correctly point out is not large enough. I hear you often rail against Governors that did not expand Medicaid. Ask yourself why they wouldn't take more Federal dollars. It's because Medicaid is a program designed and paid for by the Federal Govt. and States. Some of these Governors had the foresight and guts to determine that the way the ACA was written it was unsustainable. Those amendment's you talk about were nothing for lack of a better word. The Republicans had no real input on anything that mattered. Running a program for a state the size of Massachusetts is not in any way comparable to running a national healthcare program. The state you referenced is having real trouble with soaring Medicaid costs. The ACA, what the Republicans were offering both have one huge flaw. Nothing in them brings down the cost of healthcare. Without drivers to bring down costs any plan no matter how well intentioned will implode. People like you thing government can do a better job than a truly free healthcare market. I don't. You are pretty much a socialist. Why are so many government programs wasteful? No incentive to run them efficiently. Profit and competition made America the greatest power in the world. Why are we on the decline? Not because of Obama or Trump. The American people have always out preformed their leaders. It's because the incentive to work hard and make your own decisions in life is slowly being taken away.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/09/01/healthcosts/W470z61YbrKIhrS7xuDyVI/story.htmlhttps://kaiserfamilyfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/8311.pdfWe will never agree on the ACA. It was designed so... (
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Let me try to explain and I do appreciate you're post and you're perception of how the ACA works. I am thrilled that you are not insulting me and this kind of discussion works a lot better. But please understand that I have since 2012 been studying the ACA because of my son that falls into the 1% category of incurable disease which nobody in the Republican Party gives a damm because it's a small number of people that cost insurance carrier a lot of money. We are not talking about Cancer patients. But let's attempt to take perceptions that is born out of misinformation and let's try to get to reality which is born out of facts.
You keep saying paying more what I am asking you to do is look at premium increases for the prior 5 years before the ACA and 50% of them were junk policies.
Then look at the average increase over the 5 years after the ACA was signed into law. These policies are not junk policies where insurance companies can no longer cancel you if you get sick. Does it cost a little more yes it does but a large majority of people in this country did not understand that they had junk policies and now do not mind paying a little more. But republicans will lead you to believe that the ACA is costing higher premiums which is correct but the reason for a little higher premium is you have coverage and you will not be dropped so is it right wing perception yes.
A lot of the increase that people complain about is because there old policies had max payouts and they got cancelled so they had to pay a little more for full coverage.
Now you have to also look at employee based insurance versus policies obtained thru the exchanges it's all relevant. Exchanges are private policies not group policies. Employee based premiums only increased an average of 3% since the ACA but prior to the ACA they were increasing an average of 12%.
You have to look at the following as to what the ACA positives are. 6 years of studying this GD ACA only because I had to because it meant my sons life and getting him the quality health care.
1) employee based policies
2) Medicaid expansion
3) mandates
4) Medicare savings through the ACA
5) Medicaid savings thru the ACA
6) State by state premiums
7) State by state primiums versus states with Medicaid expansion and state not signing on
8) understanding that states run Medicaid not the federal government so don't blame Obama if you have a problem with Medicaid. There are 50 different agendas as to running Medicaid.
9) how each and every Exchange in each state works because it's the states that run the exchanges so if you have a problem with the exchange in you're state don't blame Obama.
10) States that allow red lining most states make it illegal but understand why carriers do this and get away with it. Republicans blame Obama with these districts that only have one carrier. It's not Obama it's the state.
11) States control there premium increase not the ACA if insurance carriers apply for premium increase it up to the individual states to audit and determine if the increase is justified Mass does a great job at monitoring this. Republicans blame Obama it's the stars respinsibility.
12) So what republicans have been doing since 2012 is if there State had problems they just blamed it on Obama. That was an easy way to hide the states incompetence.
I would hope you read this post completely and do some research I have been doing it for 6 years
Then you have to look at the exchanges 3 levels of coverage the Bronze program is less costly because they have a large deductible which was basically for the young and healthy. The silver plan was for an individual that wanted decent coverage or a family plan. Platinum plan costly but coverage is really good. Now what republicans have done to misinform you was they took the cost of the platinum plan and used the deductibles in the bronze plan.
Now when you hear about carriers leaving a state that's not totally true. What carriers started to do was pick a certain state and did a survey of the demographics and some stopped writing policies in those districts based on age. If the average age was high they stopped. These carriers did not leave these states as you're lead to believe they red lined districts. In most states red lining is illegal. Now under each plan (Bronze) (Silver) and (Platinum) you can select you're deductibles. You're choice
Now I have taken the time to read the updates on the ACA that the CBO puts out every 6 months and they revise there cost. It's very interesting and gave me a better understanding because costs fluctuate from one state to the next but there is always a reason. I also spot check the CBO thru the Kaiser foundation. The ACA gives the states a lot of responsibility in healthcare.
Now I have read on many occasions about the mandate. But you have to understand where the mandate policy came from and it was the Heritage foundation. This is a conservative think tank which actually wrote there own healthcare policy for a guideline for republican legislators. Mitt Romney used that agenda and incorporated it in Mass. when he was the governor. And it works great in Mass they have 99% of mass residents insured and only had a 3% increase in premiums so if you want to understand what works just read Masscap which is Obamacare because Obama used Mass as a boiler plate for the ACA.
Mandate requires all citizens to carry health Insurance or be charged a 1% tax as a penalty. Now I have read and listened to Insurance carriers and they all say for the ACA to work the young people have to have medical Insurance and there fix for this problem is to raise that penalty to a level where the penalty is higher than the cost of a bronze program plan which young people can get insurance at a very low cost and most cases under $100 a month with high deductibles.
Now prior to the ACA 41 million people in this country had no health coverage. These people were gaming the system and when they got sick or injured they went to the emergency rooms and received free treatment. No incentive to get Insurance. For the hospitals to regain those loses they increased the cost of medical care and that cost was passed off to the Insurance companies and the insurance companies passed that cost off to you in the form of higher premiums. This was republicans main complaint that's why the Heritage foundation addressed it and there fix was the mandate.
Now insurance costs by states some states had higher primiums than other states but on average the states that had high premiums which drove up the country average cost which the republicans use as a talking point but it was republicans driving up that cost not democrats because they did not sign up for Medicaid expansion which denied thousands of people in these state affordable insurance. This I believe was only 6 states with higher than average increases such as Alaska and Oklahoma Arizona and these states did not sign into the Medicaid expansion which created a higher number of uninsured in those states. The expansion program originally was mandatory but the red states took it all the way to the Supreme Court and won so Obama had to make it that states can sign up for it or choose not to get involved in it and let the states run there medicaid the way they want. But Obama gave these states a time frame of 3 years that under Medicaid the federal government would no longer subsidies these states for the uninsured due to not signing up for the expansion. The law is very extensive and it's very difficult to explain the expansion program but take that shit head in Florida Rick Scott he partition the federal government for $6 billion and Obama said no this state went fu$king nuts and Scott put the blame on Obama not Scott. There are just to many elderly under the age of 65 in Florida that could not get health Insurance under the expansion program because that idiot did not sign up. So Scott was looking for the rest of the country to pay for his stupidity.
Now per the CBO because we have an aging society with 3,750 people retiring everyday health cost has sky rocketed in this country because of elderly babyboomers. SS and Medicare have skyrocketed but the CBO reports show within 10 years these cost will begin to come down because the babyboomers will be dead. So what the report shows you by 2020 these cost will slowly start to go down it's a little secret kept by the republicans so they can advance there agenda of privatizing SS, Medicare, they know GD right well that these cost will begin to come down due to an aging country and these people begin to die off. Then they can pump there chest.
Now I was in the construction business for 23 years I had approximately 160 employees so I do have a basic knowledge of how the Insurance industry works. I started out as a union electrician and got involved with politics within the unions I sat at the table as a union guy during collective bargaining sessions. When I went into business I signed up as a Union contractor. As a union contractor I also sat in on collective bargaining as a contractor. So I know a little about union benefits, health, retirement programs. What I read on OPP pisses me off because these people have no idea how the complete system works.
Now I have been studying the ACA since 2012 the reason was my son contacted an incurable kidney disease and he was looking at Dialysis and hopefully a transplant. He was working in a red state and the employer was told that his premiums were going to go up because he had a guy with a disease that was going to be very costly. As you know under a employee based system you cannot kick him off health Insurance. So he was fired and being in a red state you have no workers rights. So now my son has an incurable kidney disease, no job and no insurance how would you feel if that was you're kid. He was actively searching employment but you have to indicate why you're former employer let you go. So for approximately 16 months between myself and my son we picked up the cost. He sold his condo and moved in with me. Then the ACA passed congress so I started searching the open enrollment and this is what I found. The silver plan by BCBS $375 a month $750 deductibles $5 copay for medication,$25 copay for doctors visits and $100 co-Pay for specialist. Great plan now remember that red state employer that fired my son he found out he had his own policy and wanted to hire him back. I was pissed but my son took the job but he took it for one reason and one reason only so he could start looking for another job which he landed with a international firm great job high wage with commissions and bonus package. So what he did was keep his ACA policy signed up with the employer policy and used it as a supplemental policy now it was costing him very little for his treatments he was not receiving any government subsidies throughout this process but now great job great insurance but sitting on $58,000 in medical bills.
Now let me address the OPP biggest complaint of telling you that Obama lied by saying you can keep you're doctor if you want. But what these people do not understand is every GD carrier in this country has what's called a network of doctors, hospitals, or any medical facility and every carrier had a booklet of the names of all these doctors and facilities that they network with and if you go outside there network you're copays will increase if you go to a specific medical facility you will pay more out of pocket. This policy has always been in place prior to the ACA so it was the carriers not the ACA. So when I was determining the best policy for my son I checked BCBS's network because my son wanted to keep his doctor. We found one doctor on his team that was not in the network so what we did was talk to that specialist and guess what he was not aware of it and the next day he signed onto that network and my son keep all his doctors. So it's easy to sit back and bitch. So there are hundreds of carriers before you choose check there network and if you're doctors are not in that network talk to him and 99.9 % of the time they will sign onto that network. I discussed this with many doctors and some of the reasons they do not sign on with certain carriers is because they jerk them around and hold up on payments. That's another complaint about Obama lying but it was not Obama it's the carriers. So the biggest problem with the ACA is people ignorance as to how the insurance industry works and how the medical industry works. Obama addressed that in the ACA which republicans ignore he has set up a hot line of insurance specialist that will address you're specific needs but has any GD person on OPP ever read the ACA, researched each plan on the open exchange, or checked insurance carriers networks no they live on total misinformation given to them by these GD republicans.
(THE ACA IS NOT COLLAPSING IF ANYTHING OVER TIME PREmiums WILL STABILIZE)