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The ACA Is in a Total PR Free-fall


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Obama Care Update

By Mark Thornton

Monday, October 20th, 2014

 

 

 

Update: My friend has not been able to use her better health insurance coverage over the last 6 months. All the health related providers have turned her insurance down and she has had to pay cash for everything. She inquired about a BCBS plan that she had been previously offered and was told that it had increased by over 100%. She was told that they were no longer able to qualify people by risk factors and that several new coverages were made mandatory under Obama Care. The silver lining for her is that she will probably qualify for a 50% subsidy under Obama Care, leaving tax payers to pick up the other half.

 

There is more to health care insurance than affordability.

I wonder how many Americans have run into this?

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Now there can be no doubt: Obamacare will increase the deficit
Christopher J. Conover
October 20, 2014

Remember this categorical assurance from President Obama?

 

“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.”

 

This was no casual, throw-away campaign promise. The pledge was made on September 9, 2009 in his health speech before a joint session of Congress. In reality, we have known for years that Obamacare would violate this promise. But champions of Obamacare have repeatedly pointed to the CBO score that purported to show that the law would reduce federal deficits by $143 billion in its first 10 years.[1] They conveniently ignored the fact that less than four weeks before the law even passed, Paul Ryan had deftly exposed all the “gimmicks and smoke-and-mirrors” underlying that calculation.

 

(Snip)

 

Here’s a quick history of previous efforts to correct the record regarding Obamacare’s impact on the deficit. While the particulars vary due to differences in time-frames and methodologies, the basic story remains the same. Rather than reduce the deficit, these various analyses–conducted by a diverse array of public agencies and health policy research centers–conclude that Obamacare will over its first decade add to federal deficits an amount measured in hundreds of billions of dollars.

 

Paul Ryan (February 25, 2010)

 

(Snip)

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HHS-Funded Study: Obamacare Will Suffer ‘Death Spiral’ If Subsidies Fail

 

The Obama administration has funded a new study by top consulting firm RAND Health that startlingly finds that if taxpayer subsidies are eliminated, Obamacare exchanges will fall into a “death spiral.”

The study comes in the wake of a number of lawsuits which are challenging the Obama administration’s implementation of Obamacare subsidies. Three lawsuits have made it to U.S. Circuit Courts, just one step from the Supreme Court, arguing that the text of the Affordable Care Act allows premium subsidies for state-run exchanges only. (RELATED: Second Court Strikes Down Obamacare Subsidies In Federal Exchanges)

 

The report was sponsored by HHS’s Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, which, among other duties, compiles the enrollment statistics each month during open enrollment for Obamacare exchanges. Given the ongoing controversy over Obamacare subsidies, HHS sponsoring the study could be a sign that the administration is beginning to worry about its prospects.Scissors-32x32.png

 

http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/21/hhs-funded-study-obamacare-will-suffer-death-spiral-if-subsidies-fail/

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The Real Story on How Much Obamacare Increased Coverage

 

We now have the Medicaid and private-market health insurance enrollment data for the second quarter of 2014 needed to complete the picture of how Obamacare’s rollout affected coverage.

What we’ve learned is that the Obamacare gains in coverage were largely a result of the Medicaid expansion and that most of the gain in private coverage through the government exchanges was offset by a decline in employer-based coverage. In other words, it is likely that most of the people who got coverage through the exchanges were already insured.

>>> Obamacare’s Effects on Health Insurance, Explained in One Infographic

The second quarter data captures enrollments that occurred during the last two months of the open enrollment period, or which were otherwise delayed due to the numerous problems experienced by the exchanges, and so did not take effect until after the end of the first quarter.

Our analysis of the data is reported in more detail in our latest paper, but our key findings are that in the first half of 2014:

 

Enrollment in individual-market plans (both on and off the exchanges) increased by 6,254,564 individuals.Scissors-32x32.png

 

http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/22/real-story-much-obamacare-increased-coverage/

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71% of Obamacare Signups Traced to Government’s Expansion of Medicaid

 

The Obama administration boasted a few months ago that more than 8 million Americans signed up for health insurance in the first phase of Obamacare. A new report from The Heritage Foundation, though, concludes that the vast majority of those gaining health coverage qualified for Medicaid because of loosened eligibility under the Affordable Care Act—and that’s what boosted enrollment figures.

 

“The inescapable conclusion is that, when it comes to covering the uninsured, Obamacare so far is an expansion of Medicaid,” Heritage Foundation health policy experts Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski write in a research paper scheduled for release today.

 

Haislmaier and Gonshorowski conclude that 8.5 million Americans gained coverage through Obamacare from January to July.

 

Commentary: The Real Story on How Much Obamacare Increased Coverage

 

However, their paper says, more than 70 percent of those signups can be traced to the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in 24 states:

 

Of the 8.5 million total individuals who gained health insurance coverage, 71 percent of that net coverage gain was attributable to Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied, working-age adults.

Scissors-32x32.png

http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/22/71-obamacare-signups-traced-governments-expansion-medicaid/

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71% of Obamacare Signups Traced to Government’s Expansion of Medicaid

 

The Obama administration boasted a few months ago that more than 8 million Americans signed up for health insurance in the first phase of Obamacare. A new report from The Heritage Foundation, though, concludes that the vast majority of those gaining health coverage qualified for Medicaid because of loosened eligibility under the Affordable Care Act—and that’s what boosted enrollment figures.

 

“The inescapable conclusion is that, when it comes to covering the uninsured, Obamacare so far is an expansion of Medicaid,” Heritage Foundation health policy experts Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski write in a research paper scheduled for release today.

 

Haislmaier and Gonshorowski conclude that 8.5 million Americans gained coverage through Obamacare from January to July.

 

Commentary: The Real Story on How Much Obamacare Increased Coverage

 

However, their paper says, more than 70 percent of those signups can be traced to the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in 24 states:

 

Of the 8.5 million total individuals who gained health insurance coverage, 71 percent of that net coverage gain was attributable to Obamacare’s expansion of Medicaid to able-bodied, working-age adults.

Scissors-32x32.png

http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/22/71-obamacare-signups-traced-governments-expansion-medicaid/

A large percentage of the rest is too those with preexisting conditions. Not many would sign up if they don't have insurance because they can't afford it, pay for it and still have to come with 5K a year before deductible.

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No surprise: Americans fail even basic questions about Obamacare, health insurance

 

A national survey of the nation’s knowledge of health insurance like Obamacare has found “wide gaps” in Americans' literacy despite a $1 billion education campaign, with the public unable to answer basic questions like how much they owe for a routine doctor’s visit.

 

The authoritative American Institutes for Research study, coming on the eve of open enrollment for Obamacare, found that most people think they know more about healthcare and health insurance than actually they do, a miserable result considering last year’s taxpayer-funded federal marketing blitz to be followed by another this year.

 

AIR’s survey of 828 people ages 22-64 also found that younger Americans were the most confused —and they were the focus of the ad campaign and the most likely to use the health insurance marketplace set up under Obamacare.

 

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/no-surprise-americans-fail-even-basic-questions-about-obamacare-health-insurance/article/2555123

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This Infographic Shows How Obamacare Might Be Just One Big Expansion of Medicaid

 

Spoiler alert! When it comes to covering the uninsured, Obamacare has proven itself to be one giant expansion of Medicaid. A new report released Wednesday reveals the total coverage increase for the first half of 2014. While total coverage increased by 8,538,327 individuals, enrollment in Medicaid accounted for 71 percent of that growth. Graph at linkScissors-32x32.png

 

http://dailysignal.com/2014/10/25/infographic-breaks-enrollment-numbers-proving-obamacare-might-just-one-big-expansion-medicaid/

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Media Conflicted on Health of Obamacare

Bethany Stotts — October 24, 2014

 

When the infamously liberal New York Times runs an article critical of Obamacare, Americans should sit up and take notice. In an October 18 article, “Unable to Meet the Deductible or the Doctor,” Amy Goodnough and Robert Pear outline how U.S. citizens purchasing Obamacare may be cutting corners on their own health because they can’t pay the exorbitant deductibles mandated by their insurance policies. Yet in Rhonda Abrams’ world, the health care law has been a huge success for the self-employed. Abrams is a USA Today columnist; she has written in support of increases in the minimum wage, as well. Scissors-32x32.png

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/media-conflicted-on-health-of-obamacare/

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Over 200,000 Doctors Avoiding Obamacare Plans

 

The number of physicians nationwide that are declining to accept health plans from Obamacare exchanges is growing, according to a study from the American Action Forum.

 

As of May 2014, over 214,000 doctors wouldn’t participate in Obamacare plans, and that number may be growing, according to AAF, a free-market think tank in Washington. While some Obamacare kinks have been worked out over the past year, exchange plans remain as unfriendly to doctors as ever.

 

Obamacare puts physicians — especially the dwindling number of those in private practice — in an especially difficult financial situation, expecting doctors to eat the costs of patients who discontinue coverage and to simply take on more patients to make up for bottom-level reimbursements.

 

Exchange plans nationwide pay on average significantly less than plans in the private market and even Medicare, according to AAF. While private plans generally pay doctors $1.00 for performing a given service, Medicare averages just $0.80; exchange plans are allowing doctors just $0.60 for the same thing. That puts Obamacare plans more in line with Medicaid reimbursements, AAF reports, and Medicaid’s low reimbursement rates have been driving doctors away for years. Scissors-32x32.png

http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/27/over-200000-doctors-avoiding-obamacare-plans/

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Obamacare 2015 prices revealed before election by ValuePenguin

 

The Obama administration isn’t revealing how much prices will increase on Obamacare insurance policies until after the election, but Jonathan Wu can tell you right now.

 

Mr. Wu, the 33-year-old CEO of ValuePenguin, has posted an Obamacare calculator on the company’s website at www.valuepenguin.com that allows consumers to shop, compare prices and figure out how much they’ll be spending before the Healthcare.gov website unveils its plans on Nov. 15.

 

Oh, and there’s no charge. “It’s completely free,” Mr. Wu said. “All the resources on our site are completely free.”

 

He said most of the relevant data is available now from state insurance regulators, who approve price changes on policies before they wind up on the federal and state health-care exchanges. It’s just a matter of digging up the information and devising a way to make it accessible online.

 

That’s easier said than done — just ask anyone working on the government health-care exchanges — but Mr. Wu, who has a background in hedge funds and a degree in computer science from Columbia University, said he’s surprised more people aren’t doing it.

 

When the Obamacare websites launched last year, “tons of people were covering it going into open enrollment and they want to talk about prices, but it was interesting to us that no one actually pulled up the rate filing or no one talked to these regulators when all this information existed,” he said.

 

 

“We said, ‘Hey, this is where the actual plans are and they can get an accurate indication of how things are going to look.’ We thought it was a good tool for people to get an idea of what these exchanges look like — to let them shop around and do a little research before they go through the process of enrolling,” Mr. Wu said.

 

Founded in June 2013, ValuePenguin provides research and tools for evaluating health care policies and credit cards. Mr. Wu started the company with two friends, Ting Pen and Brian Quinn. The company’s name comes from their last names, which together sound like “penguin.”

 

The New York-based company began examining and posting information on Obamacare policies prior to last year’s inaugural rollout in October.Scissors-32x32.png

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/27/valuepenguin-shows-obamacare-2015-prices-policies/

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27Oct

NY Times peddles Obamacare fiction

By: DrJohn

Obama-NYT-Media-Bias-Corruption1.jpg

The NY Times today runs an article that tries vainly to rescue Obama and Obamacare:

After a year fully in place, the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded in delivering on President Obama’s main promises, an analysis by a team of reporters and data researchers shows. But it has also fallen short in some ways and given rise to a powerful conservative backlash
Scissors-32x32.png

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HHS: Obamacare Cancellations Aren’t ‘Losing Insurance’ — They’re An Invitation To Obamacare

 

The millions of health insurance cancellations caused by Obamacare don’t mean people are “losing insurance,” according to a top Health and Human Services official — they just mean people are being invited to join an Obamacare exchange.

 

HHS regional director Joanne Grossie spoke to the Virginia legislature about widespread cancellations. At least 250,000 Virginians will be losing their health insurance Jan. 1 because they don’t meet Obamacare regulations Grossie whether HHS knows how many people are going to lose coverage, but Grossie took issue with the idea that customers are even losing insurance.

 

“If you got one of the notices that your policy was going to be discontinued because it didn’t adhere to the law, it meant that now you could go into the health-insurance marketplace,” Grossie said.

 

“So, I just want to remind you that you weren’t losing insurance, you were just losing that insurance plan and were now being invited to go into the health insurance marketplace,” she finished.Scissors-32x32.png

 

http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/28/hhs-obamacare-cancellations-arent-losing-insurance-theyre-an-invitation-to-obamacare/

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27Oct

NY Times peddles Obamacare fiction

By: DrJohn

Obama-NYT-Media-Bias-Corruption1.jpg

The NY Times today runs an article that tries vainly to rescue Obama and Obamacare:

 

After a year fully in place, the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded in delivering on President Obama’s main promises, an analysis by a team of reporters and data researchers shows. But it has also fallen short in some ways and given rise to a powerful conservative backlash

Scissors-32x32.pnghttp://floppingaces.net/2014/10/27/ny-times-peddles-obamacare-fiction/

That is just awful.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Where in the World is Jonathan Gruber?

Sam Kazman

October 9, 2014

 

he Obamacare insurance exchange rule is being challenged in four cases, and each one of them has been active over the last two weeks. The IRS rule puts the Obamacare insurance subsidies, and their attendant penalties, into effect nationwide. CEI is involved in two of these cases: King v. Burwell, which we lost in the Fourth Circuit, and Halbig v. Burwell, which we won in a 2-1 D.C. Circuit panel ruling. We argue that this is contrary to the underlying statute, which provides for such subsidies only in states that have chosen to set up their own exchanges—a choice that 34 states have declined.

 

(Snip)

 

So getting back to the government’s opposition to Supreme Court review of King—the one filed last Friday. It made the expected no-need-to-rush arguments about why the Court should wait until the D.C. Circuit finished its en banc review of Halbig; the issue itself supposedly didn’t require a quick resolution, and the en banc circuit might reverse the panel and thus eliminate the split with the Fourth Circuit.

 

But what stands out is what the brief did not do. It did not mention Jonathan Gruber at all. Gruber has been cited in every single previous government brief in King, and in the government’s major filings in Halbig. But in this latest document Gruber is gone. The same is true for the “three-legged stool” metaphor that he coined and the Economic Scholars amicus that he signed and that featured his work (and that the Halbig dissent heavily relied on). All of them are absent from the brief. Vanished. Verschwunden.

 

The D.C. Circuit may or may not eliminate the circuit split, but it won’t eliminate the Jonathan Gruber split.

 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

FYI Cause I had to look it up smile.pngGoogle: Jonathan Gruber

 

 

 

Jon Gruber finally speaks! … to MSNBC

posted at 6:01 pm on November 11, 2014 by Noah Rothman

 

(Snip)

 

Betraying the gravity of his insults, Gruber broke his silence on Tuesday and appeared on the friendliest venue imaginable – MSNBC with host Ronan Farrow – in order to clarify his remarks and apologize for insulting the American people.

 

Gruber repeated his claim that his comments at an academic conference in which he conceded that the law was designed to nudge states into creating their own state exchanges was the result of him speaking off the cuff; a “speak-o,” as he told The New Republic. He added that he “spoke inappropriately” when he took credit for pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people in order to ensure the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

 

Gruber further reiterated his insistence that the ACA is an “incomplete law with some typos” – a claim which even Vox finds dubious.

 

(Snip)

 

 

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HHS: Obamacare Cancellations Aren’t ‘Losing Insurance’ — They’re An Invitation To Obamacare

 

The millions of health insurance cancellations caused by Obamacare don’t mean people are “losing insurance,” according to a top Health and Human Services official — they just mean people are being invited to join an Obamacare exchange.

 

 

 

Well I for one am glad that has been cleared up. rolleyes.gif

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