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Bad news for the new health care bill
Topic Started: Oct 7 2013, 10:52 PM (2,343 Views)
DeShawn

More bad news for the new health care law, in a recent poll 91% of Americans said that they don't know anybody that tried to sign up for the new health care law.

Only 7% said that it's going well.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/10/11/does-this-latest-figure-mean-obamacare-is-in-serio.aspx
Edited by DeShawn, Oct 12 2013, 03:12 PM.
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Black Republican
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More bad news for the new health care law.

http://news.yahoo.com/disastrous-obamacare-exchanges-just-tip-iceberg-060600225.html
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n.W.o.
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Has Obamacare been overturned by the Republicans yet?
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Black Republican
Oct 15 2013, 12:17 PM
Quote:
 
Rarely has a government program rollout resulted in the level of disaster as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) exchanges over their first two weeks. The White House refuses to release enrollment statistics that should be easily gleaned from internal systems serving the exchange sites, if those servers actually remained up and running. On both of its two weekends, technicians spent long hours attempting to fix the myriad problems that stymie consumers, only to have the problems persist — even when site traffic should be low, as CNN's Elizabeth Cohen discovered on Monday.

Small wonder, then, that no one really knows how many have managed to actually buy a health-insurance policy through the federal exchange. The Daily Mail sought out answers from the insurance industry, and got estimates of 51,000 after one week — a pace that would have just two million people covered properly by the March 2014 deadline to comply with the individual mandate, far below the 30 million uninsured that the ACA was intended to assist.

Market analyst Bob Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, put the number much lower than that — at just 5,000. Insurers are seeing the same enrollees repeatedly purchasing, rejecting, and repurchasing plans, thanks to the poor performance of the federal exchange system, which serves 36 states. "One carrier exec told me that yesterday they got seven transactions for one person," Laszewski wrote on Friday, "four enrollments and three cancelations." The repeated re-enrollments have insurers so spooked that they are staring to worry that "some of these very few enrollments really don't exist."

Then there are the prices for the plans, which have given Americans their first taste of sticker shock from ObamaCare. The Department of Health and Human Services tried to get in front of the big jumps in premiums by claiming that the HHS-approved prices were "lower than projected," but Forbes' Avik Roy pointed out that the projections used by HHS for comparison were for 2016, not 2014. Prices for comparable coverage doubled, according to an analysis of HHS data by Roy and the Manhattan Institute. And for some the prices quadrupled.

But just how comparable is the new coverage? On Monday, the Chicago Tribune reported on another facet of newly-restructured plans and premiums stemming from the multiple mandates of the ACA, and found that enrollees will pay a lot more in premiums — and then a lot more out of pocket anyway.

The Tribune's Peter Frost found that a typical user in the system — a 33-year-old single father in this case — would see his premiums "more than double" from its current average of $233 a month. But if the single dad wants his premiums to remain in range, he'll need to sign up for an annual deductible of $12,700. The average deductible before ObamaCare for this consumer would have been $3,500.

Nor is that an isolated example, although it's on the far end of the spectrum. In order to keep prices low, 21 of the 22 approved plans on the Illinois state exchange have deductibles of more than $4,000 for individuals, and $8,000 for families. Frost notes that the average employer-based coverage puts the individual deductible at $1,100.

Consider what this means to the consumer. First, the government forces Americans to buy comprehensive insurance when many don't need it. At $466 a month, the single father in the example above will spend about $5600 a year on comprehensive insurance, which would far outstrip the medical expenses for most 33-year-old single men who might expect only a wellness check and perhaps a couple of acute visits to a clinic for urgent care a year. At retail costs, even with labs, that's going to run less than a thousand dollars a year at most.

Now, though, his insurance won't even cover that much. Before Illinois consumers see any benefit at all from their insurance policies, they will have to spend more than $4000 each year out of their own pocket — and without the benefit of health-savings accounts (HSAs) to use untaxed income for that purpose. That means that some consumers will spend much more each year over and above their newly-inflated premiums, making it less and less likely that they will ever see any benefits from their mandated insurance policies other than avoiding the small fine from the IRS for non-compliance.

Thanks to the new mandate on insurers to cover the uninsured with pre-existing conditions at community rates, most people will choose to pay that fine anyway, and buy the insurance only when serious illness or injury occurs that requires hospitalization or extended treatment. That mandated risk on insurers is one reason that premiums and deductibles have skyrocketed.

The result is a parody of an alternate, free-market model of reform. Rather than demand that consumers buy comprehensive insurance, the alternate model would have emphasized catastrophic coverage with high deductibles, which before ObamaCare were low-cost options for healthier consumers who wanted to indemnify themselves against unexpected major costs. Removing insurers from routine maintenance care would have restored price signals and competition to the family-practice market, which would have provided incentives for doctors to re-enter it. Consumers could then have used their HSAs, which are discouraged in the ACA system, to cover their own routine maintenance, and insurers could have returned to their proper role: Indemnifying people against major loss, not acting as wellness managers. That role properly belongs to patients and their physicians, not insurers and certainly not the government.

Thanks to the ACA, we have the worst of both worlds. Some consumers now have to pay enormous premiums for coverage they can't access until they pay enormous out-of-pocket expenses first, while insurers have to cover even more risk, and providers have to deal with even more red tape. When voters start paying through the nose in this system, they will soon recognize that the administration's ideas of reform are as workable in real life as their ObamaCare exchange website
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Black Republican
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It took this person 7 hours to sign up for Obamacare.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/10/15/First-Delaware-Client-of-Obamacare-Took-7-Hours-to-Sign-Up
Edited by Black Republican, Oct 17 2013, 12:16 AM.
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Marcus
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Black Republican
Oct 17 2013, 12:16 AM
That's terrible.
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Affinity
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The Chicago Tribune agrees with the Tea Party.

Quote:
 
This week, The Chicago Tribune brutally shredded the (Un)Affordable Care Act. There was no mincing of words, no caveats – The President’s hometown newspaper took Obamacare to the woodshed.

Wasting no time, the hammering started in the first sentence:

If you’ve tried to sign up online for health coverage under the problem-plagued Obamacare exchange, our sympathies. Many people have tried to create accounts and shop for insurance under the new law. Few have succeeded. Those that have enrolled have found that the system is prone to mistakes. Some applications have been sent to the wrong insurance company.

Wait. It gets worse. Those who have managed to browse the marketplace have often been hit by sticker shock. Take Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner and single father from Carpentersville. He sought the same level of coverage on the exchange as he and his 7-year-old daughter have now, with the same insurer and the same network of doctors and hospitals. At best, Weldzius found, his monthly premium of $233 would more than double. If he chose a plan priced at the same level, the annual deductible would be $12,700, more than three times his current $3,500 deductible.

The editorial continues on, meticulously eviscerating Obamacare point-by-point. Its higher costs, simple unfairness, and poor structure are total casualties. The paper also reiterates its call for the entire law to be delayed for a year, and called for the individual mandate to be delayed for a year.

The Tribune’s editorial staff wasn’t alone in its opinions. Obamacare supporter Ezra Klein has done his own shredding:

So far, the Affordable Care Act’s launch has been a failure. Not “troubled.” Not “glitchy.” A failure.

From his closing, with emphasis added:

The Obama administration’s top job isn’t beating the Republicans. It’s running the government well. On this — the most important initiative they’ve launched — they’ve run the government badly. They deserve all the criticism they’re getting and more.

It may be too little too late, but Obamacare is such a disaster that even non-allies of the Tea Party agree about the disastrous state of the law. Everything the President touted to sell the American people on his health care system in the 2012 election is proving false. 2014 is quickly emerging as a referendum on this train wreck law.
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-77808576/
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Whozthatgurl
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Oct 18 2013, 02:05 AM
The Chicago Tribune agrees with the Tea Party.

Quote:
 
This week, The Chicago Tribune brutally shredded the (Un)Affordable Care Act. There was no mincing of words, no caveats – The President’s hometown newspaper took Obamacare to the woodshed.

Wasting no time, the hammering started in the first sentence:

If you’ve tried to sign up online for health coverage under the problem-plagued Obamacare exchange, our sympathies. Many people have tried to create accounts and shop for insurance under the new law. Few have succeeded. Those that have enrolled have found that the system is prone to mistakes. Some applications have been sent to the wrong insurance company.

Wait. It gets worse. Those who have managed to browse the marketplace have often been hit by sticker shock. Take Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner and single father from Carpentersville. He sought the same level of coverage on the exchange as he and his 7-year-old daughter have now, with the same insurer and the same network of doctors and hospitals. At best, Weldzius found, his monthly premium of $233 would more than double. If he chose a plan priced at the same level, the annual deductible would be $12,700, more than three times his current $3,500 deductible.

The editorial continues on, meticulously eviscerating Obamacare point-by-point. Its higher costs, simple unfairness, and poor structure are total casualties. The paper also reiterates its call for the entire law to be delayed for a year, and called for the individual mandate to be delayed for a year.

The Tribune’s editorial staff wasn’t alone in its opinions. Obamacare supporter Ezra Klein has done his own shredding:

So far, the Affordable Care Act’s launch has been a failure. Not “troubled.” Not “glitchy.” A failure.

From his closing, with emphasis added:

The Obama administration’s top job isn’t beating the Republicans. It’s running the government well. On this — the most important initiative they’ve launched — they’ve run the government badly. They deserve all the criticism they’re getting and more.

It may be too little too late, but Obamacare is such a disaster that even non-allies of the Tea Party agree about the disastrous state of the law. Everything the President touted to sell the American people on his health care system in the 2012 election is proving false. 2014 is quickly emerging as a referendum on this train wreck law.
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-77808576/
You have to do much better.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2006/10/12/oreilly-admitted-he-mislabeled-the-chicago-trib/136924
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Whozthatgurl
Oct 18 2013, 02:12 AM
You have to do much better.
You have to do better. This has nothing to do with O'Reilly. Click the link and read for yourself right on the Chicago Tribune website.
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-77808576/



Why Obamacare is a mess
October 15, 2013

If you've tried to sign up online for health coverage under the problem-plagued Obamacare exchange, our sympathies. Many people have tried to create accounts and shop for insurance under the new law. Few have succeeded. Those that have enrolled have found that the system is prone to mistakes. Some applications have been sent to the wrong insurance company.

Wait. It gets worse. Those who have managed to browse the marketplace have often been hit by sticker shock. Take Adam Weldzius, a nurse practitioner and single father from Carpentersville. He sought the same level of coverage on the exchange as he and his 7-year-old daughter have now, with the same insurer and the same network of doctors and hospitals. At best, Weldzius found, his monthly premium of $233 would more than double. If he chose a plan priced at the same level, the annual deductible would be $12,700, more than three times his current $3,500 deductible.

"I believe everybody should be able to have health insurance, but at the same time, I'm being penalized. And for what?" Weldzius told the Tribune's Peter Frost. "For someone who's always had insurance, who's always taken care of myself, now I have to change my plan?"

Last spring, President Barack Obama said "there will still be, you know, glitches and bumps" in the rollout of the new system. But what we're seeing now is no glitch or bump. There is a growing mountain of evidence that Obamacare has fundamental problems in design and implementation.

• Illinois officials boasted that insurance premiums here would be lower than expected. But the Tribune reported Sunday that 21 of the 22 lowest-priced plans offered for Cook County residents have whopping annual deductibles of more than $4,000 for an individual and $8,000 for family coverage. That's much more than many families can afford to pay.

• The Obama administration delayed issuing major rules to set up the exchanges until after the 2012 presidential election and refused to push back the Oct. 1 launch date, lest Republicans take political advantage, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

• Sloppy design of the architecture of the computer system, not simply an overload of users, created the problems that are blocking people from applying online for coverage, The Wall Street Journal reported last week.

"These are not glitches," an insurance executive who has participated in many conference calls on the federal exchange told the Times. "The extent of the problems is pretty enormous. At the end of our calls, people say, 'It's awful, just awful.' ''

The Department of Health and Human Services under chief Obamacare cheerleader Kathleen Sebelius has had three years to develop this system. It has busted deadline after deadline, all the while promising that the system would be ready on Oct. 1. It has overpromised and underdelivered. The excuse? Demand was unexpectedly high, crashing servers. Unexpected? Americans have been bombarded with marketing campaigns and news stories and outreach efforts on behalf of Obamacare. And now Sebelius and Co. are shocked that people are logging in to ... buy insurance? Come on, Ms. Sebelius.

We encouraged a one-year delay in the law. We recognize that's not going to happen. Obamacare is here. It's time, though, for the Obama administration to level with Americans about what's happening here. It's time to stop blaming Republicans and start talking about what needs to change.

The administration can do one thing — apparently on its own — to spare many Americans. It can delay the requirement that everyone buy insurance by March 31 or pay a penalty. Federal officials already have granted a one-year reprieve to the mandate that most employers provide insurance to their workers or pay a penalty. The administration cut a sweet deal for Congress and its staffers, who will continue to get generous federal subsidies. It has allowed any number of carve-outs for special pleaders.

A delay in the individual mandate would not be a special favor to American consumers. It's a matter of fairness.

A one-year hiatus would give everyone a chance to take a hard look at the pricing of these plans, to see if consumers could get more affordable options without sacrificing coverage.

There are more problems. People who have individual insurance coverage are finding that Obama's oft-repeated promise — "if you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan" — is just not true. They are being told by insurers that their existing plans expire on Dec. 31 and they must choose new coverage. They're learning that insurers managed to offer lower-cost plans by narrowing the networks of hospitals and doctors that are available or by upping the out-of-pocket expenses. Unless people are careful in selecting coverage, they may be surprised to find they have to pay much more for out-of-network care to go to their doctors or get treated at the best hospitals. Federal officials argue that they'll work out the kinks in the system in plenty of time for people to sign up by Dec. 15 for coverage that begins Jan. 1. Yes, the techies might be able to work out the computer network problems by then. But that's not a given.

The deeper problems of cost and coverage in Obamacare are going to require an admission by the administration that this government management of the health care market is extraordinarily complicated and will be very costly for many people. The law has to change.
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Whozthatgurl
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Perhaps The Chicago Tribune endorced Obama for president because he was from Chicago. It's looks like their true conservative colors are coming through.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tribune
Edited by Whozthatgurl, Oct 18 2013, 02:26 AM.
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