The biggest reason is it was a Republican Idea to begin with!
It is a free market solution, that gives people choices.
The original plan came from a Conservative Think Tank and was proposed by Senator Bob Dole.
...Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Emblem, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, United Health, and Well Point are all forced to close their fucking doors at the end of the barrel of Uncle Sam's guns. Until then, we still have a piece-of-shit for-profit health care system, whose main purpose and goal is not to make sure you're healthy, but to make sure that scumbag capitalist shitheads get filthy fucking rich because of your misfortune.
I can remember the two doctors we had in our small town, while growing up. And, I a was friends with both of their son's. I know that they lived better than most of us, but not extravagantly; modestly. And, I know that if someone couldn't pay their bill, it was put on their tab, to be paid in increments and time that the person could afford. Of course the doctors are part of the problem. They got seduced by quick reimbursements, then found out years latter that they had jumped the shark, taking their patients with them. Some doctors, today, have opted out of the system. They're paying the price, and are often in the same condition as those two small town doctors that I spoke of. But, the one's I've talked to are happy with their decision.
but socialism that still lines the pockets of the insurance companies.
First lets address the socialism issue, that part is the easiest. Obamacare "FORCES" healthy people to buy insurance or pay anyway so as to subsidize those who are unhealthy. When you forcibly take money from one person to pay for the needs of another that is socialism, how anyone could argue otherwise is beyond me.
The second part is even worse, Obamacare is even worse than flat out socialized medicine which could have easily been accomplished by simply expanding Medicare and doing away with the giant insurance companies who are still making countless billions while rationing out our health care. Doing nothing at all would be much better than Obamacare, or if the country wills that healthcare is a "right" and that we want socialized medicine, than lets drop the pretense and simply do away with the insurance companies altogether.
FWIW I am as healthy as a horse and have "self insured" for most of my adult life, but I do realize that is not the case for most people. and that either we simply don't treat poor people and throw them into the street to die, or we have to do somethng to care for them, but lets be honest about it. Accepting all pre existing conditions is no longer insurance, any more than discovering someone ran into your car and THEN buying insurance. So let's drop the pretense and simply adopt some kind of socialized health care that protects the poor and quit calling it insurance, and by doing so, lets eliminate the billions of dollars of fraud that both the current system and Obamacare not only allow, but encourage.
The duplicitous, greed addled Health Insurance industry should have been faced with a single-payer "Universal" system that would have bankrupted the profiteering fucks in 6 months. But instead we get a half-assed system based on "Direct Capitation" which is wholly Un-Constitutional!
Obama hasn't hung or even prosecuted a single fucking banker for what they did to America, and he let Kaiser and the rest continue fucking over the American public. I'm very disappointed in the man
Nike is a private for-profit shoe company. If Uncle Sam raided them, nationalized them, and got into the business of making shoes, and called it Uncle Sam shoes, then THAT would be socialism. Requiring people to have health insurance isn't socialism. Does anyone call the requirement to buy car insurance socialism? Of course, not.
The purpose and goal of all the insurance companies I mentioned is to sell health insurance privately, and for a profit. That is not socialism. It is many things, but socialism, it is not. Forcing people to buy their shit is just a law.
In that case we are the largest socialist country in existence since inception. We have always taken money from people in taxes paying for things that benefitted society and we still do.
One example is rural telephone and rural electric supply. Neither would be available without subsidy.
The insurance companies will be making money from all the young healthy people who will now be buying insurance
Since when is FORCING people to buy something they don't need something to be proud of? Especially when it doesn't even benefit the average citizen, but instead further enriches the insurance companies that are the biggest problem with our health care system in this country to begin with.
I'd like for the heath care act to work, but I foresee people paying out more money, along with receiving worse care.
Don't we have a shortage of doctors in this country? Now we will have more people seeking treatment, with fewer doctors to go around.
............it will NOT survive. It will end up bankrupting the Big Insurance companies and we end up with a single payer system like Medicare.
Don't we have a shortage of doctors in this country? Now we will have more people seeking treatment, with fewer doctors to go around.
Even if you don't sign up, you still have to pay.
I wish ObamaCare would fail AND bring down the insurance companies with it, I could actually live with an expansion of Medicare, That system is far from perfect and certainly needs tweaking, but ObamaCare is flawed from it's very core and no amount of tweaking will ever fix it.
I am not young, but I am quite healthy and I have my doubts that I am going to sign up either. The difference between me and some 25 year old kid fresh out of college is that I can afford the several thousand dollar penalty that I will have to pay by not signing up for ObamaCare, do you think the average 25 year can say the same.
What do they do with the people who refuse to sign up, and have no taxable income, or basically have
no money?
You can't fine people who have no money. Do they stay on, or sign up for medicaid?
I wish ObamaCare would fail AND bring down the insurance companies with it, I could actually live with an expansion of Medicare, That system is far from perfect and certainly needs tweaking, but ObamaCare is flawed from it's very core and no amount of tweaking will ever fix it.
I am not young, but I am quite healthy and I have my doubts that I am going to sign up either. The difference between me and some 25 year old kid fresh out of college is that I can afford the several thousand dollar penalty that I will have to pay by not signing up for ObamaCare, do you think the average 25 year can say the same.
Don’t have to pay for insurance or pay a fine. Estimated to be ~15million. We as the wealthiest country in the world should be ashamed of their abject poverty and some of them served this country and are veterans.
Want a drink? Need a tetanus shot?
I guess it gets down to the fact that you and I have choices, and based on the "pitchfork" crowd, their choices are limited to none.
65 and over population both the Part A and part B trust funds will be depleted in 10 or 15 years. So even before we consider your expansion idea, we have the raise the payroll tax and the self-employment tax and raise premiums for beneficiaries just to break even.
Now let’s expand Medicare to the entire population. The payroll and self employment tax is already 2.9% even before the increase we need to break even. So OMG those taxes go to 15% or 20% plus premium increases. And that’s just for Medicare Part A. Part B requires additional taxes.
If you think people now hate Obamacare, I can guarantee you they will love it if we try to expand Medicare and tax enough to do it. And don’t say “we will cut out the fraud.” Every new admin says that –no one’s done it yet.
So funding is the problem and is why expanding Medicare is NOT the solution.
And I’ll tell you where I really disagree with your view-insurance companies are not going to make money under Obamacare. Other people have said that and I say they are wrong. I think they will go bankrupt or leave the market bc in the short term the percentage of horribly sick vs. healthy insureds is probably going to be 8 to 1.
I’d like to see how they ran the numbers and concluded that the payments from the healthy will come anywhere close to the insurers’ liability for the sick now that most of us live into the 80s
Have you navigated the Covered California website? I'm totally at a loss, and can't get any intelligent answers on how the insurance companies and government priced the premiums. It doesn't affect me as I get insurance through work, but I'm helping out a couple of families, and getting intelligent answers are in short supply.
I know it's supposed to be simple in how premiums are calculated. Age(s) + zip code + household income = premium, including subsidy. The only variable that I changed was the zip code. I used a zip in South Central LA, a zip code in affluent area like Santa Barbara, and a zip in SFO, also affluent. Explain the following:
I used 2 people, both age 60, household income of $60,000, which is just below the subsidy threshold.
The following is location, total premium, subsidy amount, and total monthly payment.
South Central - $958 - $636 = $322 zip 90002
Santa Barbara - $1044 - $922 = $122 zip 93102
San Francisco - $1196 - $1125 = $71 zip 94102
The above are Bronze plans from Anthem. Do those numbers make any sense to you?
-- Modified on 10/2/2013 9:28:24 PM
I would wait a while until we know the system is stable. Stay on your employers insurance they are better plans.
What? Your numbers confound me. The subsidy cannot possibly be that
high.
“San Francisco - $1196 - $1125 = $71 zip 94102”
If these numbers are correct, bronze plan buyers get over a 90% subsidy with a $60,000 2 person income. What do really poor people get? There's not much left and this is greater than the cap on percentage of your income that you have to pay.
Run your numbers under the Kaiser Foundation calculator for California. You will not get anywhere close to that big a subsidy. They have got to pay more than that on a $60,000 income
Here is the Covered California link that goes right to the calculator
https://www.coveredca.com/shopandcompare/#calculator
For SFO just add 2 people, 60,000, 94102, 60 years of age for 2 adults. Now try it for South Central with a zip code of 90002.
I got different numbers with the Kaiser site. I think I would trust Covered California as that is the site you use to sign up.
Mari, I can't even come up with an intelligent argument. I'm lost.
remember that the bronze plan has the highest possible out of pocket costs through annual deductibles and cost-sharing. The bronze plans are required to cover only 60 percent of costs, compared to 70 percent for the mid-range silver plans and 90 percent for the highest priced “platinum” plans. So they pay a whopping 40% deductible which could be a problem given your plan to depress income.
So I think you should run the numbers for the silver plan as well to decide which really is the best value
Everything is based on the Silver Plan @ 9.5% cap of salary. So in the end, all zip codes pay $475. The differences are in the other plans for obvious reasons.
-- Modified on 10/2/2013 11:12:47 PM
they are going to loose billions in the coming years. Wait till the Hospital lobby rises up in these states,
Stay tuned.
As far as the 25 year old kid in your example is concerned, here are the options:
1) He can stay in his parents plan
2) If he doesn’t have enough income, he gets subsidy
3) If he is below the poverty level, he doesn’t have to pay the fine
4) There are more options but the 3 are the straight forward options
So your example of the 25 year old paying thousands of dollars in fine is false.
Moral of the story is, most people have not read one word of ACA. They only repeat the misleading statements of professional liars called Republicans when it comes to ACA.
Do I agree with employers providing insurance when they have 50 plus employees. Absolutely yes because they can purchase health care through the exchange and are able to get it at far lower rates than they could before. If the business doesn’t how to make profit by taking care of their people, they don’t need to be in business. No, I do not think businesses today pay fair wages where the employee are able to take care of themselves.
You have the option of buying your own health insurance or buy it through the exchange so, whether GaG buys it through the exchange or not is not going make or break the exchange.
There are many good things like, annual wellness care, no pre-existing condition based denial, able to keep you children in your plan till they are 26 and no max limit so families doesn’t go bankrupt when one of them gets chronically ill.
Lot of misleading shit flying around with one iota of truth. Perfect, no. Need modification in the future, absolutely and that’s how most things work in the universe