Who will Obamcare really benefit?

[lynn63]

It won't be the dominate healthy population that are young and require very little healthcare. It won't be the population that needs healthcare but still can't afford to get it because out of pocket costs is not affordable. It certainly will have no impact on the 12.6 million people that no longer have a job.

It won't benefit the businesses that have over 50 employees that have insurance with no regulations that stops them from raising premiums. How will it effect those companies that have full time and part time employees that above the 50 employee limit?

Unless they give high enough tax credits for those businesses that are under 50 employees who join the exchange that will make it affordable to both employer and employee it will not benefit them.

Right now the only one that is going to benefit from this is the government in penalties collected for non compliance with this new law and all those premiums collected from the massive pool of healthy individuals that require little healthcare.

 

[dblack]

The health insurance industry.

 

[S.J.]

Obama.

 

[Greenbeard]

Who will Obamcare really benefit?

Take your pick. Anyone who has to navigate the individual insurance market; seeks safe, high-quality care in an American hospital; wants reliable information on the quality of physicians, the quality of hospitals, or a hospital's standard charges to be publicly available; has complex or chronic conditions that require coordination between multiple providers; pays taxes to support the Medicare program; expects information on the clinical effectiveness of various treatment options to exist and be available when discussing options with their physician; and so on.

The list could go on.

 

[Mad Scientist]

It will benefit the People through the Collective.

 

[lynn63]

There was a time frame when the health insurance industry did not have a plan for 65 and over, it was only Medicare for decades. It wasn't until approx 25 years ago that the health insurance industry began Medicare HMO plans. They wouldn't have touched that market if there was not a profit in it.

The majority of deaths occur after 65 and almost half of those die at home so right there costs are decreased and profits go up. The next age group that has high mortality is between 46 and 64 with cancer and heart disease being the highest cause of death and half of those die at home.

Most health problems occur in these age groups while everyone under that stays pretty healthy most of their lives. Right now with high unemployment and 30 million people that work for a employer that is under the 50 number is why we have the mandate. It is not because they are unhealthy, its because they are healthy and young and those premiums are total profit for insurance companies.

Most people have to fight their insurance company to pay claims when they do require healthcare unless you have an HMO or PPO plan then it becomes a fight between the healthcare provider and the insurance company.
The fact is health insurance don't want to pay any claims and keep all the money collected from the masses and this makes them a truly evil enterprise. Medical care should not be a business based on profit. The money we all put into the pool should be used for healthcare and if it had been done like this all along, there would not be a problem with high cost of healthcare.

 

[dblack]

Medical care should not be a business based on profit.

What should it be based on? Altruism? Should no one be allowed to pay for health care?

 

[Political Junky]

For profit health insurance is illegal in most European countries.

 

[uscitizen]

I have an over 50 friend who started work at Lowes.
They have a 12 month exclusion of any prexisting health condition in their employee health insurance policy.

Actually it is 18 months since it excludes any condition for 12 months that was diagnosed 6 months before joining their "health care plan".
And aside from colds and such most of a persons HC problems for people over 50 have already been diagnosed.
Heart, BP, back issues, etc.

 

[Queecho Feecho]

There are several groups or slices of the population that will benefit. Some are not as obvious as others.

Here is one example: Due to the restrictions on the use of age as a rating variable, older people will benefit. To illustrate, before PPACA, an insurance company might have priced a policy as follows:
Base rate = $200
Age | Age Factor | Resulting Premium
20 0.4 200 x 0.25 = $50
40 1.00 200 x 1.00 = $200
60 2.4 200 x 1.75 = $350
In that case, the resulting age ratio (defined as highest age-based premium divided by the lowest age-based premium) is 350/50...which yields 7:1. Why would an insurance company do that? Because their expected claims costs for a 60 year old are roughly 7 times the expected claims costs of a 20 year. (I picked these specific numbers not because they are what is actually seen in the industry, but to illustrate the concepts at play and make the math a little easier in my example - the true max:min age bands tend to be something like 5:1 for females and 6:1 or 7:1 for males.)

Enter PPACA, with the 3:1 age rating restriction. Now if the insurance company needs to collect the same total premium to pay for those three peoples' claims, then their age factors and resulting premiums will look like the following:
Base rate = $200
Age | Age Factor | Resulting Premium
20 0.5 200 x 0.50 = $100
40 1.00 200 x 1.00 = $200
60 1.5 200 x 1.50 = $300
The total premium collected is still $600, but the max:min age-based premium meets the PPACA requirements (300/100 yields 3:1).

So that illustrates that older people will benefit as their premiums go down due to age band restrictions. The flip side of that coin is that younger people are affected negatively as they have to pay higher premiums.

Now here's a problem that can happen as a result. Suppose that 20-yr-old says "Wow, I used to pay $50, now my premium has doubled to $100! Forget that, I'm not getting coverage, I don't need it that much." So they decide not to purchase health insurance. Now the insurance company still has the claims costs for the 40 and 60 year old people, but they aren't collecting commensurate premium to cover them. $100 of premium disappeared, but only $50 in claims costs.

Insurance companies will anticipate this behavior of consumers and have to raise the premiums for everyone in order to make up for all of the younger people that [wisely or not] decide not to purchase health insurance. So rather than premiums of $100, $200, and $300, the health insurance company might charge premiums of $110, $220, and $330, that way when the 20 yr old doesn't buy, they can still collect $220 + $330 = $550, which matches the total premium they used to collect to cover the 40 and 60 yr olds (remember those premiums pre-PPACA in this example were $200 and $350, totaling to $550).

 

[Queecho Feecho]

No follow-up after that? I guess everybody already knew that.

 

[tap4154]

Obama's BIG GOV'T agenda will benefit, with the ACA -- and it's intrusion into/and control over our lives -- being the foundation of his Marxist agenda; to transform America into Euro-style nanny state.

Other than that, it's ALL negative. Costs will go up for those that pay, and care will degrade. A MASSIVE increase of bureaucracy which will have a HUGE database on American citizens like never before. Massive expanded power and control to the IRS. Twenty-somethings will suddenly realize they have to purchase coverage, or pay the penalty. Poor folks will still get the same lousy care in Medicaid, which will be further strained by the expansion, and seniors will be "expendable things", waiting to be shuffled off to the furnace.

All as we drown in the paperwork, and the unreadable law which has now expanded to 20,000 pages, being written by non-elected socialist cretins who are not accountable to the public. Only the basic framework was "passed", with zero support from the opposition party, and against the will of the majority of the public. The rest is being written behind the scenes, as is done in any banana republic dictatorship.

Jobs will be harmed, medical innovation will be harmed, the costs will be double or much more than the original estimates, and continue to expand.

We're fucked.

 

[t_polkow]

Obama's BIG GOV'T agenda will benefit, with the ACA -- and it's intrusion into/and control over our lives -- being the foundation of his Marxist agenda; to transform America into Euro-style nanny state.

Other than that, it's ALL negative. Costs will go up for those that pay, and care will degrade. A MASSIVE increase of bureaucracy which will have a HUGE database on American citizens like never before. Massive expanded power and control to the IRS. Twenty-somethings will suddenly realize they have to purchase coverage, or pay the penalty. Poor folks will still get the same lousy care in Medicaid, which will be further strained by the expansion, and seniors will be "expendable things", waiting to be shuffled off to the furnace.

All as we drown in the paperwork, and the unreadable law which has now expanded to 20,000 pages, being written by non-elected socialist cretins who are not accountable to the public. Only the basic framework was "passed", with zero support from the opposition party, and against the will of the majority of the public. The rest is being written behind the scenes, as is done in any banana republic dictatorship.

Jobs will be harmed, medical innovation will be harmed, the costs will be double or much more than the original estimates, and continue to expand.

We're fucked.

Well so much for any intelligent conversation.

 

[LilOlLady]

Illegal aliens? It will pay for their free healthcare?

 

[LoudMcCloud]

Obama care will sone become death panels. Just look up Bill Gates and Death Panels. There are around 5 clips of him talking about it.

 

[LoudMcCloud]

Thin Red-Line News


It wont help smokers. Smokers will get higher premiums

 

[dblack]

Obama care will sone become death panels. Just look up Bill Gates and Death Panels. There are around 5 clips of him talking about it.

We'll all face a point where it's too expensive to stay alive. The question is, who gets to make that call? Ultimately, whoever is responsible for paying the bill will decide. Whether it's government, an insurance company, a charitable organization, or just your family - someone will eventually decide you aren't worth it.

The question is, who do you want making the call? The only way to have more control over our health care is to pay for more of it ourselves. The more we manage to push it off on someone else, the less control we will have.