Obamacare 3rd anniversary: By the numbers

[Trajan]

The news just keeps getting "worse and worser" for ObamaCare. When Reuters reports negative news about it, it must be really bad:

Millions of Americans will be priced out of health insurance under President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul because of a glitch in the law that adversely affects people with modest incomes who cannot afford family coverage offered by their employers, a leading healthcare advocacy group said on Tuesday.

Tax credits are a key component of the law and the White House has said the credits, averaging about $4,000 apiece, will help about 18 million individuals and families pay for health insurance once the Affordable Care Act takes full effect, beginning in January 2014.

The tax credits are geared toward low and middle-income Americans who do not have access to affordable health insurance coverage through an employer. The law specifies that employer-sponsored insurance is affordable so long as a worker's share of the premium does not exceed 9.5 percent of the worker's household income.

In its rule making, or final interpretation of the law, the IRS said affordability should be based strictly on individual coverage costs, however.

That means that, even if family coverage through an employer-based plan far exceeds the 9.5 percent cutoff, workers would not be eligible for the tax credits to help buy insurance for children or non-working dependents....

Little hope seen for millions priced out of health overhaul | Reuters


So, let me get this straight. ObamaCare says that 26 years olds can be on their parents' healthcare plans, but the affordability calculation covers only one person.

Now That's Logic!

Don't worry, green beard will be along in a minute to tell us it's all part of the master plan, in others words ala kevin bacon, remain calm .....all is well.

 

[EriktheRed]

Here's a snapshot look at Obamacare after 3 years. The result is decidedly mixed.

Obamacare's 3rd anniversary: By the numbers | wtsp.com

Two things leap out at me:

1. The government has to do a really better job of selling this program and informing potential customers. Due to the complexity of the law, too few people know how it will affect them and for them not to know after 3 years is inexcusable.

2. The GOP needs to get off their all or nothing position and start helping to make it better. If they had waded in to help correct what's wrong with Obamacare 3 years ago, instead of pretending they can kill it totally, how much better off would we be right now?

1) Absolutely right.

2) You're kidding, right?

 

[boedicca]

But hey, it doesn't matter how much health insurance costs go up, because for some people it's really just Mortgage Insurance...at least that's what the person heading up implementing ObamaCare thinks.

But in trying to dismiss this report, Sebelius not only showed the administration's indifference to the cost explosion ObamaCare will unleash, but a complete ignorance about the market she's planning to take over.

"Some of these folks," Sebelius said, referring to those hit by ObamaCare's price spikes, "have very high catastrophic plans that don't pay for anything unless you get hit by a bus. They're really mortgage protection plans, not health insurance."

White House Yawns As ObamaCare Premium Spikes Loom - Investors.com

 

[Trajan]

It's rather hard to get a accurate fix on either the cost of or how effective Obamacare will be since it does not go into full effect until 2014 I believe.

Dude, THEY don't even know....the Class Act cash cow went kaput, Rand think tank, advocate for he electronic records system (see: big savings according to Obama) is in trouble, another advocate and non partisan says setting up the exchanges would be, I think the word they used was 'grueling'....

 

[boedicca]

This pretty much sums it up:

 

[Greenbeard]

Don't worry, green beard will be along in a minute to tell us it's all part of the master plan, in others words ala kevin bacon, remain calm .....all is well.

Why would you think that I favor an interpretation that favors employers at the expense of families? I don't. Those businesses should be fined and their employees should have access to federal subsidies in exchanges. Yet they won't, which is good for the federal balance sheet and the employers. Not so much for the little guy.

And if right and left alike believe (as they seem to) that those employers should be fined and those families offered assistance, then it shouldn't take too much to push Congress to correct the IRS's decision.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

Company just renewed our plan and take a guess, it got

a) more expensive or

b) Prohibitively expensive and we had to get a new plan

 

[Erand7899]

Here's a snapshot look at Obamacare after 3 years. The result is decidedly mixed.

Obamacare's 3rd anniversary: By the numbers | wtsp.com

Two things leap out at me:

1. The government has to do a really better job of selling this program and informing potential customers. Due to the complexity of the law, too few people know how it will affect them and for them not to know after 3 years is inexcusable.

2. The GOP needs to get off their all or nothing position and start helping to make it better. If they had waded in to help correct what's wrong with Obamacare 3 years ago, instead of pretending they can kill it totally, how much better off would we be right now?

Wow! The government is deficient in the propaganda department, and the Republicans are responsible for the Democrats forcing through a nightmare of a law.

Perhaps the people who voted for the damn thing should have actually read it before they passed it. Who could have guessed this was going to happen?

 

[CrusaderFrank]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWOQA8S3i4g]Obama - Breathalyzer - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Erand7899]

Congress knows what's in it. The DUPES don't know what's in it.

OF COURSE people with crummy plans will pay some more for good health care, if they make more than 4x the poverty line, and don't get gov't help.

Hell, I know what's in it, having read the whole damn thing before it was passed. The bill was right there online for anybody to see.

You might have read the whole damn thing before it was passed, but you don't have any more idea of what's in it, than anyone else. That bill makes hundreds of line changes to a multitude of existing laws, and unless you also read those laws and understood what the changes did, you are blowing smoke.

In addition, the vast amount of what's in it, has been left to be written by numerous panels that have been set up in the executive department. They don't even know what's in it yet, and they are having a difficult time trying to figure it all out.

 

[Greenbeard]

You might have read the whole damn thing before it was passed, but you don't have any more idea of what's in it, than anyone else. That bill makes hundreds of line changes to a multitude of existing laws, and unless you also read those laws and understood what the changes did, you are blowing smoke.

Except that most of the things anyone's ever interested in talking about in the ACA (i.e. around insurance and coverage) are in fact self-contained in a new section of the U.S. Code.

42 USC Chapter 157 - QUALITY, AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE FOR ALL AMERICANS

 

[boedicca]

Don't worry, green beard will be along in a minute to tell us it's all part of the master plan, in others words ala kevin bacon, remain calm .....all is well.

Why would you think that I favor an interpretation that favors employers at the expense of families? I don't. Those businesses should be fined and their employees should have access to federal subsidies in exchanges. Yet they won't, which is good for the federal balance sheet and the employers. Not so much for the little guy.

And if right and left alike believe (as they seem to) that those employers should be fined and those families offered assistance, then it shouldn't take too much to push Congress to correct the IRS's decision.

The businesses should be fined for doing what the regulations encourage them to do?

Spoken like a true statist.

 

[Greenbeard]

The businesses should be fined for doing what the regulations encourage them to do?

The regulations excuse them from fines they should be paying for failing to offer families affordable coverage. That's the problem you highlighted.

I agree with you, it should be fixed.

 

[boedicca]

I agree that ObamaCare should be fixed, but I doubt we agree on how to fix it.

The answer is not fining businesses into insolvency (because that is what your agenda would do).

The real answer is to get rid of ObamaCare altogether. It's a disaster and it's going to do massive damage to our economy and millions of lives.

 

[Trajan]

Don't worry, green beard will be along in a minute to tell us it's all part of the master plan, in others words ala kevin bacon, remain calm .....all is well.

Why would you think that I favor an interpretation that favors employers at the expense of families? I don't.

no, really? getdafugoutta here!!!!!!

Those businesses should be fined and their employees should have access to federal subsidies in exchanges. Yet they won't, which is good for the federal balance sheet and the employers. Not so much for the little guy.

And if right and left alike believe (as they seem to) that those employers should be fined and those families offered assistance, then it shouldn't take too much to push Congress to correct the IRS's decision.

wait a minute, I thought this was all about the 'little guy', you mean you guys screwed up?

yes by god lets fine those businesses!!!!didn't they get the memo? those bastards!!!

 

[Trajan]

The businesses should be fined for doing what the regulations encourage them to do?

The regulations excuse them from fines they should be paying for failing to offer families affordable coverage. That's the problem you highlighted.

I agree with you, it should be fixed.

The regulations excuse them from fines they should be paying for failing to offer families affordable coverage.

who says they should?

 

[Trajan]

Company just renewed our plan and take a guess, it got

a) more expensive or

b) Prohibitively expensive and we had to get a new plan

don't worry bro, Greenbeards got yo' back

 

[Greenbeard]

I agree that ObamaCare should be fixed, but I doubt we agree on how to fix it.

The answer is not fining businesses into insolvency (because that is what your agenda would do).

You just said that "news just keeps getting 'worse and worser' for ObamaCare" because the employer fines don't apply in many cases in which they clearly ought to.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

I think it's over 15,000 pages of regulations.

How can it not be awesome?

Think of all the things you use everyday that have a 15,000 page operating manual

 

[boedicca]

Clearly, ObamaCare would be even better if they added a few thousand more pages to micromanage how employers do things.