Affordable Care Act a HIT!!!! 7 million goal achieved; 8 million now signed up!

[Keith]

The underlying shift towards 'higher trained nurses' and paramedics has been slow but inexorable here...

The original goals that the NHS set out to achieve have been surpassed many times over since it's inception, but the constant shifting of priorities and the methods of realising them, political meddling and the sheer rise in numbers has the whole system on the ropes.

Sometime ago, it needed a total overhaul but no-one had the political will to change - either that or it would have been suicide to do so.

The NHS functions, after a fashion, but is a huge black hole.

It needs further funding = more tax but then you end up with an increasing number of dependents and a shrinking number of contributors as the workforce grows older and lives longer.

I am not sure if Americans realise that for example, if I need full time nursing care in the future, live alone and have to go into a care home, the local authority will seize my house to pay for the care which typically runs at around £1,200 per week.

That's a terrible thing to contemplate after a lifetime of hard work.

(This practice of course, has nothing to do with the NHS but relates to general care which is the responsibility of the Local Authority but it is related, i.e. tax funding driven)

 

[Pat]

ACA has achieved its goal, get the uninsured into an insurance plan so that those of us who DO carry our own insurance won't have to pay for the health care of those who are not responsible enough to do just the same.

Doug, really??? All this stuff is free???

Medicaid enrollment, is almost half of the Obamacare numbers, they pay no premiums.
Of the others enrolled but how many actually have insurance is unknown. Georgia's insurance commissioner recently announced that of 220,000 applications, only 107,000 have actually paid -- a rate of less than 50 percent -- and almost all were offered subsidies.
Most of those who signed up had insurance and because the government banned aspects of their policies, meaning they were cancelled, coercing them into the government program, yet most other uninsured individuals still don't comply.

You are pleased that now you won't have to pay, if the insured don't pay, who does??? Who pays for the dramatic expansion of Medicaid? Who pays for the millions that have lost employer coverage and are subsidized as part of Obamacare? You don't??? Have you been able to avoid paying taxes?
Obamacare mandates a significant additional tax burden over the next 10 years by income level. If you make under $15,000: it's just over $59.00. If you make between $50,000 and $100,000, it's $6,069.90. And if you make between $200,000 and $250,000, it's $38,200.66. A net investment income tax of 3.8 percent tax on individuals, estates, and trusts worth more $200,000 or $250,000 for joint filers. You also get an increase in the threshold for itemized deductions for medical expenses from 7.5 percent to 10 percent of gross income.

The CBO showed that at the end of this year, there will still be 42 million uninsured and 31 million without insurance ten years from now. By 2018, the CBO report projected the total getting coverage from the exchange will hit 25 million, although at the same time 12 million will lose coverage. Is that success?
Fearing a massive electoral defeat in November, I realize the current Democrat talking points stresses the need to call Obamacare a resounding success throughout the blogosphere. I truly admire your being able to hold your nose and do so.

 

[Jim Craik]

Please explain why Romney care is so successful and popular?

I'll ask again, the two programs are very similar, why do you think it's so popular?

 

[Al Wohlstrom]

I'm sure it has something to do with racism!

 

[Pat]

Jim, the population of MA is 6,649,000 (as of 2010). The population of the U.S. 313,000,000. That's 47 times the difference in scale. (For reference the UK is 63 million and opinions as to it's success vary). Keith suggests the unfortunate way forward may be a Soviet style mass production of medical delivery with physicians assistants and nurses versus doctors. I suspect he's right, except for those fortunate to afford high end private medical care in a black market two tiered system (as my do cousins in Ireland).
The scale of Obamacare is what dooms it. It's just too big, too political and the bureaucracy necessary to feed the beast will consume so much of the resources it can never work. The government is unable to manage it's fraud waste and abuse as it is. When a bureaucracy is that large, nobody is really accountable. You can't fire people when they screw up and they know it. Heck, with all the management layers, you can't even figure out where the problem is. Case in point is the Obamacare website.
I'm all for healthcare and there are simply better ways to get it done than massive, expensive and unwieldy nationalization. If MA or Louisiana want to craft their own plans, that's up to their respective citizens and elected officials. They may not be so large than they can't evolve and adapt it. I suspect New York City or Los Angeles could not. Perhaps Palo Alto could. I dunno. At the national level, we're simply not good enough to pull it off. It would be like turning world health over to the United Nations.

 

[Jim Craik]

Pat,

I know that you do not want to use Massachusetts sucess as a guide because........it was a sucess!

But really, its an extremely good comparable, I can't think of a better one, can you?

Now I evaluate and compare things for a living and you would have to give far more weight to an actual case study with actual data, than to say a "wild ass guess" made after viewing agenda driven data.

Yes Massachusetts was also very slow the first year....

Massachusetts' law's first year: Just 123 people signed up during the Bay State's first month of open enrollment. By contrast, 20 percent of the first year's 36,000 enrollees purchased coverage in the last month before an individual mandate penalty kicked in.

Like the national law, it requires people to carry health insurance coverage -- and provides low- to middle-income people with financial help to purchase an insurance plan.

****Massachusetts' health reform law, which served as a model for the Affordable Care Act, reduced the state's uninsured rate from 9.6 percent in 2006 to 5.6 percent in 2010.****

Pat, now we know that Mass is a small fairly wealthy state, but a 40%+- reduction in the uninsured in four years.....

I know how much you enjoy charts, this is from the New York Times, Mass reached 90%+ coverage around 2009. Its now over 98%.



Now Pat, you say there are "simply better ways to get it done" I'm very interested in hearing a better way, please tell us.

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

I started out as a fan of the ACA. Now I am not so sure. I think there ought to have been a public option, I think the insurance companies are laughing all the way to the bank, and I do not know a SINGLE person whose premiums have dropped; not one. I have my doubts about all this. And I don't think it's such a huge success. I think that remains to be seen.

And, just so you know, I donated to Obama, I went out and knocked on doors for his first campaign, and I am very liberal indeed. But I think the jury's still out on the ACA, and I think it will be a long time before the verdict comes back.

I don't think there's anything to crow about. And I think that people who are crowing- and that includes you, Jim, in spades- are doing so from relief that the ACA isn't more fucked up than it is. Which is nothing to crow about at all.

As far as Sebelius goes, if the ship hits something when you are at the helm, you are relieved of your command. Whether or not you were conning the ship or up on the bridge. No excuses and tough shit. You retire. She should have been gone long ago.

 

[Jim Craik]

I don't think there's anything to crow about. And I think that people who are crowing- and that includes you, Jim, in spades- are doing so from relief that the ACA isn't more fucked up than it is. Which is nothing to crow about at all

Posted by Jimbo

You got that right, after six years of hearing nothing but horrific predictions, it is nice to see some actual data and yes the relief is significant.

As for your comment "I do not know a SINGLE person whose premiums have dropped; not one".

We are only months into this, plus premeums have been going up at a steady rate from well before Obama became president.

I do not expect a drop in premiums, and quite frankly I would condider a slower increse to be a success.....

But that said, the blue line on that chart does appear to be going down

 

[Doug S.]

I believe any progress toward requiring universal coverage is better than none at all.

I do sincerely believe that those individuals I mentioned, the undocumented immigrants who come to our country, work for unverifiable income and send most of it out of our country, will be the worst offenders regarding the universal requirement because although they may make enough to pay for insurance their verifiable income will land them right in the income range that qualifies for subsidies, further exacerbating the economic insult which they inflict on this country.

Regarding the claim that insurance plans have been cancelled because they do not meet minimum standards, I say "HOO-RAY", because that will require the industry to upgrade their product and with the inadequate plans off the table economics would seem to require that increased competition for the plans would help reduce the costs.

IMHO the biggest issue I see is the fact that the government REQUIRES insurance and some undoubtably believe that is wrong, but there IS precedent. In every state you either must have auto insurance or prove the ability to self-insure if you want to drive. I am a big believer in charging according to risk, like the auto insurers do...probably because I am so healthy and use very few of the health benefits my insurance provides. If there were some way to implement that process into the ACA, I believe it would be more fair.

...except for those who ignore the requirement...if those are undocumented immigrants I believe they should get the care it takes to get them healthy enough to deport!!!

Cheers!!!

Doug

 

[Pat]

Pat,
Now Pat, you say there are "simply better ways to get it done" I'm very interested in hearing a better way, please tell us.

Jim, how jobs and the resultant employer paid medical coverage for a significant percentage of the 90 Million Americans out of work classified as “Not in Work Force”. 663,000 Americans Dropped out of Labor Force in March alone.

Government isn't the solution, it's the problem...

 

[Bob Fechter]

"But until we get more data, and get answers to these questions, we're reluctant to accept any ObamaCare numbers put out by this administration."

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: 2.7 Million ObamaCare Enrollees Remain Unaccounted For - Investors.com
Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook

 

[Doug S.]

I could not get this damn iPhone to copy the text of the article you posted, but the part that caught my eye was their admission that in order to reach the 8 million enrolled there had to have been a surge of activity in enrollment during tha last 6 weeks of the enrollment period. We do know from all the information I've read and heard that there WAS a huge increase in activity during those closing weeks of the enrollment period.

While I understand the orientation of the source you posted is conservative in nature, they admitted they did not even have numbers for those closing weeks. To have cast doubt on the claims without data to prove or disprove their expressions of doubt smacks of irresponsible journalism to me.

Just MHO, though...YOMV and almost always does :thumbsup:

Cheers, LB!!

Doug

 

[Mark Clapp]

Wow Doug, you're all for nationalized medical care but are firmly against immigration reform = amnesty. You probably will be calling yourself the "R" word pretty soon.

 

[Jim Craik]

Government isn't the solution, it's the problem...

Pat,

When you said that there were better ways to do this, I though you knew of better ways to do this.

But you did not provide a better way.

Saying "Government isn't the solution, it's the problem" is not a solution, it's the same as saying we should keep things the way they were.

The Government and those who do have health care (meaning you and me) have been covering the un-insured.....your solution is to just keep doing that?

You think the Government who is now paying for un-insured "is the problem", and should not provide a "solution"?

In your plan the Government has been and will contine to be the "solution".

Pat, how do you think those who can not afford or will not pay for insurance should be covered?

 

[Al Wohlstrom]

The solution was the sale of insurance across state lines to make it more competitive and Tort reform, but lawyers aren't about to let that happen. The government never needed to be involved.

 

[Jim Craik]

Al, Pat,

How does your solution provide health care to those who can not afford it or those who will not pay for it?

 

[Al Wohlstrom]

I don't have a problem with the government helping those that actually are unable to pay for proper healthcare, all of the states were doing just that prior to the AHA. If they are not willing to pay for it, then let them deal with the consequences, that's their choice, not the governments.

 

[Robert May Eng.]

You need an tax funded NHS system like we have here whereby every man woman or child is entitled to health care. There is nothing to stop a system being developed that can account for a higher level of care for those in a position to pay for it which could be minus the flat rate costs the government system would have paid. That would work.

Bob

Edit, nice graph Jim.

 

[Jim Craik]

I don't have a problem with the government helping those that actually are unable to pay for proper healthcare, all of the states were doing just that prior to the AHA. If they are not willing to pay for it, then let them deal with the consequences, that's their choice, not the governments.

So Al's solution is for the Govenment to cover those who can not afford or will not pay for coverage.

As an example, in Al's plan, someone who can afford health care but desides not to purchase it.......

Al thinks the Government should pick up the bill for his by-pass surgery?

Does anyone else think that?

 

[Larry L.]

Jim, it would have been faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar cheaper had 'the gubmunt' just GIVEN 3 million bux - TAX FREE - each to every man woman and child legally residing in the country and let 'em all pay for their OWN darned medical from then on.

Do the math...



And DON'T start grinding on about how we're going to cover ILLEGALS. I'm tired of hearing about how America somehow has a responsibility to coddle/provide for THEM for whatever trumped up reason. IMO, we treat 'em at the horsepistol - then we deport 'em. 'Real simple. And we also should, (1) actually SECURE our borders to keep 'em from just turning around and walking right back in, and we should, (2) put an END to the "anchor baby" laws to remove that incentive, and, with the exception of their free trip to the horsepistol mentioned above, (3) forbid illegals ANY kind of govt assistance/services. (It'd be cheaper to treat each of the illegals now in the country ONE TIME at a hospital and give 'em the boot than to continue doing things the way they're being done now.)

This stuff ain't rocket science...and it DARN SURE needn't be "p.c."



Oh, and BTW, before you start beating your "RACIST!!!" drum (and I know you would have)...when I say "illegals" I mean A-N-Y illegal no matter from whence he may have come...no matter his race, his color, his religion, his birthplace, his $$$ situation, his marital status, his sexual persuasion - OR WHATEVER.

Now, flame away...I'm going back on vaycay for at least a week 'far as this thread is concerned. 'Too darned aggravating...:veryangry: