How Republicans Hurt Their Own Red State, Rural, And Poor Constituents To Destroy Obamacare

[skews13]

When the ACA (“Obamacare”) was passed, it mandated that insurance companies had to insure everyone who signed up regardless of whether they had pre-existing conditions and regardless of their health status. Insurance companies were required to add millions of new insureds to their roles and insurers had no way of actuarially assessing their risk and no way to accurately set policy pricing. Because of this, everybody agreed that insurance companies would probably lose money in the first decade or so until the insurance industry was able to have real numbers to assess their risks and to price insurance policies accurately and to have the newly insureds’ health status stabilize.

The millions of new insureds would would cost more up front to assess their health and to stabilize any pre-existing health problems. Over time, once the newly insureds’ health was stabilized, their healthcare costs would go down.

As an example, a new insured may need many health tests upfront (MRI’s, blood tests, etc.) to determine the cause of an illness or just to determine their overall health status. Once all of the testing and health assessments are completed, they are diagnosed, and have a treatment plan (medications etc.), the insureds may only need annual health check ups.

So the costs of all of these new insureds with unknown health problems would probably be much higher in the beginning and then lower or stabilize over time.

To get insurance companies on board with the risk, Obamacare included a safety net for insurance companies.

Obamacare said that the government would cover insurance losses using a pool of fees collected from the insurance companies under Obamacare. If an insurance company was going to go bankrupt from insuring the risky new individuals, the government would cover their losses out of this insurance company fee pool.

The fee charged to insurance companies was to spread the risk among all insurance companies to create a safety net for the insurance industry.

This safety net encouraged the insurance industry to take the huge risk of insuring these millions of new people with unknown health status. This was called the “risk corridor.” The risk corridor payments were to be a safety net until the insurance policy market stabilized.

On December 9, 2015, however, Marco Rubio and several other Republicans slipped a little noticed provision into a giant spending bill, gutting the safety net of risk corridor payments to insurance companies.

As a result of the lack of a safety net, insurance companies were thrown into a crisis.

This caused a chain reaction of events in mostly poor, red states. First, dozens of non-profit insurance companies that were started under Obamacare to provide low cost insurance policies (with no profit margins) in mostly poor and low income red states went bankrupt.

Moreover, because of this huge, new risk Republicans created, many insurance companies began to do either of two things: 1) greatly increase their premium prices to offset their risk or 2) entirely pull out of the markets in mostly poor, low income red states.

This left some states with only one insurer. It also left so many small insurance companies in distress that they were easily gobbled up by the insurance giants and the insurance giants have successfully eliminated all competition in many markets. As you know, when there is no competition, there is typically price gouging.

This is why there was an explosion of news stories in 2016 (during the lead up to the Presidential election) about premium costs rising and insurers backing out of the market.

The sad truth of the matter is Republicans are so cynical that they would purposely hurt their own constituents to try to get political advantage and create bad news stories about Obamacare.

Republicans purposefully broke Obamacare and purposefully hurt their own constituents for political advantage.

People are suffering, but it is not from Obamacare.

They are suffering because the Republicans purposefully hurt them. The people most hurt by them gutting the risk corridors were their own red state, rural, and poor voters and Trump voters. People need to wake up on what really happened.

Here are some news stories on this:

healthaffairs.org/…

www.nytimes.com/…

theweek.com/…

thehill.com/…

www.salon.com/...

How Republicans Hurt Their Own Red State, Rural, & Poor Constituents to Destroy Obamacare

 

[BasicHumanUnit]

Is that you Nicolas Maduro ??

 

[Daryl Hunt]

I already know how to stop all this nonsense. Do what EVERY OTHER western country has done and just Nationalize Health care and be done with it. Don't do it half way like we have now. The Genie is out of the bottle and it will never be forced back into the bottle again so stop this nonsense about Repealing it.

The reason we aren't Nationalized is that the Insurance Companies dump millions into whomever they think will benefit them the most. In almost all western countries, this behavior would be enough to get many of their top level managers thrown in prison as well as their trained monkey on a chain in government.

Just nationalize it and get it over with. But as long as the Insurance companies own congress and the presidency, you won't see that happen. And you won't see their trained monkeys on chains do anything to make things work even halfway.

 

[DarkFury]

I already know how to stop all this nonsense. Do what EVERY OTHER western country has done and just Nationalize Health care and be done with it. Don't do it half way like we have now. The Genie is out of the bottle and it will never be forced back into the bottle again so stop this nonsense about Repealing it.

The reason we aren't Nationalized is that the Insurance Companies dump millions into whomever they think will benefit them the most. In almost all western countries, this behavior would be enough to get many of their top level managers thrown in prison as well as their trained monkey on a chain in government.

Just nationalize it and get it over with. But as long as the Insurance companies own congress and the presidency, you won't see that happen. And you won't see their trained monkeys on chains do anything to make things work even halfway.

Nope. Kill it and walk away.

 

[The Irish Ram]

Is that you Nicolas Maduro ??

^

 

[deanrd]

I already know how to stop all this nonsense. Do what EVERY OTHER western country has done and just Nationalize Health care and be done with it. Don't do it half way like we have now. The Genie is out of the bottle and it will never be forced back into the bottle again so stop this nonsense about Repealing it.

The reason we aren't Nationalized is that the Insurance Companies dump millions into whomever they think will benefit them the most. In almost all western countries, this behavior would be enough to get many of their top level managers thrown in prison as well as their trained monkey on a chain in government.

Just nationalize it and get it over with. But as long as the Insurance companies own congress and the presidency, you won't see that happen. And you won't see their trained monkeys on chains do anything to make things work even halfway.

Nope. Kill it and walk away.

Let them die.

That's who the GOP is. What they represent.

 

[BrokeLoser]

I already know how to stop all this nonsense. Do what EVERY OTHER western country has done and just Nationalize Health care and be done with it. Don't do it half way like we have now. The Genie is out of the bottle and it will never be forced back into the bottle again so stop this nonsense about Repealing it.

The reason we aren't Nationalized is that the Insurance Companies dump millions into whomever they think will benefit them the most. In almost all western countries, this behavior would be enough to get many of their top level managers thrown in prison as well as their trained monkey on a chain in government.

Just nationalize it and get it over with. But as long as the Insurance companies own congress and the presidency, you won't see that happen. And you won't see their trained monkeys on chains do anything to make things work even halfway.

Yeah, yeah let's hit the middle class with a 40% income tax rate so we can provide our piece of shits with no strings attached TRULY free health care. "Other countries" have fewer piece of shits on the tit and a much higher tax rate....make sense?

 

[BrokeLoser]

When the ACA (“Obamacare”) was passed, it mandated that insurance companies had to insure everyone who signed up regardless of whether they had pre-existing conditions and regardless of their health status. Insurance companies were required to add millions of new insureds to their roles and insurers had no way of actuarially assessing their risk and no way to accurately set policy pricing. Because of this, everybody agreed that insurance companies would probably lose money in the first decade or so until the insurance industry was able to have real numbers to assess their risks and to price insurance policies accurately and to have the newly insureds’ health status stabilize.

The millions of new insureds would would cost more up front to assess their health and to stabilize any pre-existing health problems. Over time, once the newly insureds’ health was stabilized, their healthcare costs would go down.

As an example, a new insured may need many health tests upfront (MRI’s, blood tests, etc.) to determine the cause of an illness or just to determine their overall health status. Once all of the testing and health assessments are completed, they are diagnosed, and have a treatment plan (medications etc.), the insureds may only need annual health check ups.

So the costs of all of these new insureds with unknown health problems would probably be much higher in the beginning and then lower or stabilize over time.

To get insurance companies on board with the risk, Obamacare included a safety net for insurance companies.

Obamacare said that the government would cover insurance losses using a pool of fees collected from the insurance companies under Obamacare. If an insurance company was going to go bankrupt from insuring the risky new individuals, the government would cover their losses out of this insurance company fee pool.

The fee charged to insurance companies was to spread the risk among all insurance companies to create a safety net for the insurance industry.

This safety net encouraged the insurance industry to take the huge risk of insuring these millions of new people with unknown health status. This was called the “risk corridor.” The risk corridor payments were to be a safety net until the insurance policy market stabilized.

On December 9, 2015, however, Marco Rubio and several other Republicans slipped a little noticed provision into a giant spending bill, gutting the safety net of risk corridor payments to insurance companies.

As a result of the lack of a safety net, insurance companies were thrown into a crisis.

This caused a chain reaction of events in mostly poor, red states. First, dozens of non-profit insurance companies that were started under Obamacare to provide low cost insurance policies (with no profit margins) in mostly poor and low income red states went bankrupt.

Moreover, because of this huge, new risk Republicans created, many insurance companies began to do either of two things: 1) greatly increase their premium prices to offset their risk or 2) entirely pull out of the markets in mostly poor, low income red states.

This left some states with only one insurer. It also left so many small insurance companies in distress that they were easily gobbled up by the insurance giants and the insurance giants have successfully eliminated all competition in many markets. As you know, when there is no competition, there is typically price gouging.

This is why there was an explosion of news stories in 2016 (during the lead up to the Presidential election) about premium costs rising and insurers backing out of the market.

The sad truth of the matter is Republicans are so cynical that they would purposely hurt their own constituents to try to get political advantage and create bad news stories about Obamacare.

Republicans purposefully broke Obamacare and purposefully hurt their own constituents for political advantage.

People are suffering, but it is not from Obamacare.

They are suffering because the Republicans purposefully hurt them. The people most hurt by them gutting the risk corridors were their own red state, rural, and poor voters and Trump voters. People need to wake up on what really happened.

Here are some news stories on this:

healthaffairs.org/…

www.nytimes.com/…

theweek.com/…

thehill.com/…

www.salon.com/...

How Republicans Hurt Their Own Red State, Rural, & Poor Constituents to Destroy Obamacare

Obeanercare was never designed to work long term for anyone other than our bottom feeders. Simple shit.

 

[peach174]

The Red States didn't want it in the first place.
They knew it wouldn't work before it was even passed.

 

[BlackFlag]

Republicans did all they could to hurt Americans by sabotaging the effort to give access to healthcare to as many Americans as possible. All for political gain. They won the power they sought, but when it came time to vote to repeal the ACA for a 62nd time, to PROVE that the first 61 times weren't just a shameless ploy, they refused. Because it wouldn't gain them anything politically.

The alt-right led GOP is a fraud. And if Americans re-elect them then we deserve whatever damage is dealt to us. Just like when the worst of us re-elected Dubya in 2004.

 

[whitehall]

What's the point? Young guys are forced by government mandate to insure themselves for breast cancer and middle class families have a deductible that costs more than a freaking car. The ACA is imploding and democrats refuse to fix it or repeal it. Who do we blame, Barry Hussein or Trump?

 

[BlackFlag]

What's the point? Young guys are forced by government mandate to insure themselves for breast cancer and middle class families have a deductible that costs more than a freaking car. The ACA is imploding and democrats refuse to fix it or repeal it. Who do we blame, Barry Hussein or Trump?

Since Republicans control the entire federal government, 35 Governorships, and most state legislatures... we blame them. They spent years sabotaging the ACA with the promise that they'd eventually repeal it. Now they can. If they don't, the blame is on them.

 

[Missouri_Mike]

If the deplorables would only be happy paying double the premiums and double the deductibles they could see how awesome obiecare really is.

 

[deanrd]

The Red States didn't want it in the first place.
They knew it wouldn't work before it was even passed.

Not true. Obamacare was a GOP plan straight out of the Heritage Foundation.

It's the name Obama they don't like. Too "black".

 

[Norman]

What a load of bullshit.

How about taking responsibility for your bullshit policies? The fact that massive amount of tax transfers are not paid to the insurers out of the same tax payer's who are meant to benefit from the policies is frankly - bullshit reasoning. It's brilliant that such fake attempt to make Obamacare look good at the expense of the tax payer was gutted.

 

[peach174]

The Red States didn't want it in the first place.
They knew it wouldn't work before it was even passed.

Not true. Obamacare was a GOP plan straight out of the Heritage Foundation.

It's the name Obama they don't like. Too "black".

What you just stated isn't true.
Not one R voted for it and Obama was too far left.

 

[2aguy]

I already know how to stop all this nonsense. Do what EVERY OTHER western country has done and just Nationalize Health care and be done with it. Don't do it half way like we have now. The Genie is out of the bottle and it will never be forced back into the bottle again so stop this nonsense about Repealing it.

The reason we aren't Nationalized is that the Insurance Companies dump millions into whomever they think will benefit them the most. In almost all western countries, this behavior would be enough to get many of their top level managers thrown in prison as well as their trained monkey on a chain in government.

Just nationalize it and get it over with. But as long as the Insurance companies own congress and the presidency, you won't see that happen. And you won't see their trained monkeys on chains do anything to make things work even halfway.

The national healthcare systems around the world are collapsing, they can't afford them. They have no way to control costs, they are losing doctors and medical innovation is almost nonexistent......of course, they can simply let their patients die.....just ask Charlie Gard, oh, that's right, they let him die.....

 

[Daryl Hunt]

I already know how to stop all this nonsense. Do what EVERY OTHER western country has done and just Nationalize Health care and be done with it. Don't do it half way like we have now. The Genie is out of the bottle and it will never be forced back into the bottle again so stop this nonsense about Repealing it.

The reason we aren't Nationalized is that the Insurance Companies dump millions into whomever they think will benefit them the most. In almost all western countries, this behavior would be enough to get many of their top level managers thrown in prison as well as their trained monkey on a chain in government.

Just nationalize it and get it over with. But as long as the Insurance companies own congress and the presidency, you won't see that happen. And you won't see their trained monkeys on chains do anything to make things work even halfway.

Nope. Kill it and walk away.

The Genie is already out of the bottle. You can't go back.

 

[Anathema]

How Republicans Hurt Their Own Red State, Rural, & Poor Constituents to Destroy Obamacare

Not really. They're simply returning these people to the same conditions they were in before the ACA. There is no net damage, only return to the way things should always have been.

 

[deanrd]

The Red States didn't want it in the first place.
They knew it wouldn't work before it was even passed.

Not true. Obamacare was a GOP plan straight out of the Heritage Foundation.

It's the name Obama they don't like. Too "black".

What you just stated isn't true.
Not one R voted for it and Obama was too far left.

It was debated for a year and a half. It contained over 130 GOP amendments.
Of course they didn't vote for it.

Don't be a dipshit nitwit. It's really irksome.

Obama says Heritage Foundation is source of health exchange idea

Still, there's little doubt that Heritage has been a consistent and eager promoter of the exchange idea, especially during the effort to design a new health care system for Massachusetts. That effort concluded with the Democratic legislature joining with the Republican governor, Romney, to implement a system that includes a health insurance exchange.

On numerous occasions, Heritage scholars wrote approvingly of the exchange system in Massachusetts, known as the Connector. In a paper about the Massachusetts plan published on April 11, 2006, Edmund Haislmaier, a Heritage fellow in health care policy, wrote of the "truly significant and transformative health system changes that the legislation would set in motion."

-----------------------------

Some key differences:

"For instance, the federal law requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to define an "essential health benefits package" (and update its details every year). This will become the minimum package offered on the exchanges."

That's to cut back on junk policies.

And the ACA has federal regulations, like 26 year olds on parents policies and pre existing conditions.

--------------------------

WTF is wrong with these G....D....Republicans??????? After all this time, they don't know any more than what Kitty Litter knows. Inexcusable.