Aetna pulls completely out of Obamacare....

[Gilligan]

Here are some numbers from a press release from the Obama White House in 2014. You can take the data with a grain of salt because obviously the White House was playing up the success of the ACA, but it also gives you a feel for the basic numbers. As to your point about people signing up on the exchange because they lost coverage at work that is likely the case for some of the 8 million people who used the ACA exchanges, but it is hard to say how many.

HEALTH CARE BY THE NUMBERS
• 8 million people signed up for private insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplace. For states that have Federally-Facilitated Marketplaces, 35 percent of those who signed up are under 35 years old and 28 percent are between 18 and 34 years old, virtually the same youth percentage that signed up in Massachusetts in their first year of health reform.
• 3 million young adults gained coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act by being able to stay on their parents plan.
• 3 million more people were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of February, compared to before the Marketplaces opened. Medicaid and CHIP enrollment continues year-round.
• 5 million people are enrolled in plans that meet ACA standards outside the Marketplace, according to a CBO estimate. When insurers set premiums for next year, they are required to look at everyone who enrolled in plans that meet ACA standards, both on and off the Marketplace.
• 5.7 million people will be uninsured in 2016 because 24 States have not expanded Medicaid.

2014. The beginning of the end for Obamacare.

 

[SamSpade]

Here are some numbers from a press release from the Obama White House in 2014. You can take the data with a grain of salt because obviously the White House was playing up the success of the ACA, but it also gives you a feel for the basic numbers. As to your point about people signing up on the exchange because they lost coverage at work that is likely the case for some of the 8 million people who used the ACA exchanges, but it is hard to say how many.

HEALTH CARE BY THE NUMBERS
• 8 million people signed up for private insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplace. For states that have Federally-Facilitated Marketplaces, 35 percent of those who signed up are under 35 years old and 28 percent are between 18 and 34 years old, virtually the same youth percentage that signed up in Massachusetts in their first year of health reform.
• 3 million young adults gained coverage thanks to the Affordable Care Act by being able to stay on their parents plan.
• 3 million more people were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP as of February, compared to before the Marketplaces opened. Medicaid and CHIP enrollment continues year-round.
• 5 million people are enrolled in plans that meet ACA standards outside the Marketplace, according to a CBO estimate. When insurers set premiums for next year, they are required to look at everyone who enrolled in plans that meet ACA standards, both on and off the Marketplace.
• 5.7 million people will be uninsured in 2016 because 24 States have not expanded Medicaid.

A lot of these must certainly overlap OR the data is different in 2017. Here's a link to a site I just read :
https://www.americanactionforum.org/insight/20-million/

Not surprisingly, a number of young adults gained coverage simply by staying on their parent's plan. It does not mean that, should that go away, they would LOSE it, because they may just as well get it from their place of employment.
In any case, I haven't seen a single Republican proposal that does away with that.

A huge portion of these insured gained healthcare because of expanding Medicaid - and as the article says, as many as 4.9 million were *already* eligible. While it's great that someone gets health care coverage they weren't getting before, it's hard to credit Obamacare for doing something about it.

I don't know how many are people who had insurance and had to go through the exchanges.
I don't know how you might even COUNT those who only purchased it because they didn't want to pay the fine, but you'd think it's some kind of catastrophic number to hear the Democrats tell it - remove the mandate and all hell breaks loose. Can't have people CHOOSE not to buy it.

Over all - I can't see how this was a good idea. If we were so concerned about the uninsured, could we have not found a program targeted at them, rather than screw everyone?

 

[Gilligan]

If we were so concerned about the uninsured, could we have not found a program targeted at them, rather than screw everyone?

But that's just it. Such a program would do nothing toward achieving the one and only actual goal of the whole mess..single-payer government-managed health care. In fact, it would have been steps in practically the opposite direction.

 

[Restitution]

I personally know of 5 people who made attempts to get health care through Obamacare exchanges because the small businesses they worked for did not have to carry a medical plan after it's passing and implementation. Each of these people had great health plans before Obamacare.

After it's passing and implementation, each of these small businesses dropped their health care plans, told the employees to get plans through the exchanges. EVERY ONE OF THEM could not afford coverage even close to what they lost. Only 1 of them bit the bullet and got a plan. The others HAVE TO gamble with the fines and non-coverage. Just too damn expensive!

 

[stgislander]

I personally know of 5 people who made attempts to get health care through Obamacare exchanges because the small businesses they worked for did not have to carry a medical plan after it's passing and implementation. Each of these people had great health plans before Obamacare.

After it's passing and implementation, each of these small businesses dropped their health care plans, told the employees to get plans through the exchanges. EVERY ONE OF THEM could not afford coverage even close to what they lost. Only 1 of them bit the bullet and got a plan. The others HAVE TO gamble with the fines and non-coverage. Just too damn expensive!

So you are blaming the small businesses?

 

[Gilligan]

I personally know of 5 people who made attempts to get health care through Obamacare exchanges because the small businesses they worked for did not have to carry a medical plan after it's passing and implementation. Each of these people had great health plans before Obamacare.

After it's passing and implementation, each of these small businesses dropped their health care plans, told the employees to get plans through the exchanges. EVERY ONE OF THEM could not afford coverage even close to what they lost. Only 1 of them bit the bullet and got a plan. The others HAVE TO gamble with the fines and non-coverage. Just too damn expensive!

That ^ is about the only "story" I've heard over the last several years from anyone who cared to share it. Just yesterday, an acquaintance, a military vet with a wife and 3 kids, was howling. He'd recently scored a job that he had badly wanted and was looking forward to some better times for his family. Yesterday, he got the notice from the company HR department with what his share of the company health package was going to cost him every month. $2250. That's right...over two grand. He was beyond stunned...

 

[Restitution]

So you are blaming the small businesses?

Not at all. If I was running a small business and was "legally loopholed" so I could not spend extra income on a plan for my employees.... it's only good business.

What I am blaming is the ACA itself for making the loopholes and just being a sh!tty policy all together.

In the mean time though.... those 5 friends struggle without health care because they are too rich to get it for free/get assistance and too poor to afford the enormous costs.

 

[SamSpade]

But that's just it. Such a program would do nothing toward achieving the one and only actual goal of the whole mess..single-payer government-managed health care. In fact, it would have been steps in practically the opposite direction.

I don't believe there is any mechanism in place that - should the nation go to single payer - to keep costs down.
When someone else is paying the bill - no one sees the need to be frugal.

 

[Hijinx]

I think to some extent the Republicans are helping Obamacare fail. Trump has already said he is not enforcing the mandate. If Trump won't support the mandate and make healthy people who don't want to buy insurance, buy insurance, it means the risk pool on the Obamacare exchanges will be high (because the ratio of sick to healthy people buying the insurance will be high) and thus the insurers don't want any part of the Obamacare exchanges.

The Obamacare exchanges will only work if everybody has to buy insurance. But since healthy people often don't want insurance, Obamacare made them buy insurance so that the ratio of healthy people to sick people would stay relatively even despite the fact that companies now had to take people with pre-existing conditions would increases the amount of sick people. All you have to do to make Obamacare start to fail is not enforce the mandate.

The Republican plan might not ever become law. I think a lot of Republicans would prefer to undermine Obamacare, watch it fail, and then pass something rather than the current strategy of passing something that isn't a great bill and shifts the blame to the Republicans if the healthcare system falters.

So Republicans are stuck between a rock and a hard place. A lot of pressure on them to replace Obamacare bill and if they fail there will be politically fallout. But right now they cannot really pass a good bill so if they do succeed at replacing it with a watered down version of it, they could end up worse off as they take the blame when healthcare falters.

Despite Trump's victory conference, I think its 50-50 whether anything ever becomes law. A lot of Republicans would rather watch Obamacare fail and then try to do something.

Republicans do not have to undermine Obamacare--------------It undermines itself.
The thing was Unconstitutional to begin with no Matter what Roberts said.
The Constitutional cannot require a person to pay for something they don't want.
Roberts was wrong the Supreme Court was wrong.
Changing the name of something does not make it less onerous.

The thing was dying on it's own and should have left to die.
The Uniparty has decided to give us all single payer, but they haven't the balls to come right out and say it.
It's what's coming. National Insurance, whether you want it or not.

It will suck/.

 

[stgislander]

Not at all. If I was running a small business and was "legally loopholed" so I could not spend extra income on a plan for my employees.... it's only good business.

What I am blaming is the ACA itself for making the loopholes and just being a sh!tty policy all together.

In the mean time though.... those 5 friends struggle without health care because they are too rich to get it for free/get assistance and too poor to afford the enormous costs.

I was (jokingly) telling my wife that if we got divorced, she'd be able to qualify for free/subsidized health insurance. She didn't bite.

 

[Gilligan]

I don't believe there is any mechanism in place that - should the nation go to single payer - to keep costs down.
When someone else is paying the bill - no one sees the need to be frugal.

Exactly. Living and working in Norway as long as I have, I've seen first hand how costs are managed ..directly and firmly from top to bottom. No need for tort reform either, because it's nonexistent. The down side..wait times...the occasional symbolic mostly strikes by nurses and others whose wages are, of course, heavily regulated and limited... I've read similar things about the Canadian version and, particularly, the UK system, but have no personal experience with those.

 

[Gilligan]

I was (jokingly) telling my wife that if we got divorced, she'd be able to qualify for free/subsidized health insurance. She didn't bite.

You didn't sugar coat it enough.

This is why I'm in sales and you are not.

 

[Restitution]

I was (jokingly) telling my wife that if we got divorced, she'd be able to qualify for free/subsidized health insurance. She didn't bite.

The part that is NOT a joke is... if your wife is employed and makes more than minimum wage..... its more than likely that she will NOT qualify.

 

[Clem72]

I don't believe there is any mechanism in place that - should the nation go to single payer - to keep costs down.
When someone else is paying the bill - no one sees the need to be frugal.

Alternately, if there is only one "buyer" and lots of sellers (health care providers), the buyer has a lot more leverage on price. Medicare pays less than BCBS for the same knee replacement, because they are the 800 lb gorilla. Doesn't mean the system would be immune to corruption though, I could see the sudden emergence of legions of medical lobbyists.

 

[GURPS]

I was (jokingly) telling my wife that if we got divorced, she'd be able to qualify for free/subsidized health insurance. She didn't bite.

Side Note ...

I cannot put my 12 yr old daughter on my Blue Cross Plan, regulatory mandates, require she be on SCHIP [or some other State Insurance Program] for $ 53 dollars a month

 

[Hijinx]

My son was required by Divorce Court to keep insurance on his daughter, so I guess has will have her on his until she is 28.
It's not like he has a choice, he has to have insurance, and his premiums are way up there and he has a $2,000 dollar deductible.

 

[Lurk]

Sometimes I wonder if they passed a bill they knew would fail to achieve their ultimate goal......

Single Payer....

Of course they did. Everyone forgets that "poison pill" baked into the program. If the insurance companies pull out, the program switches to "Bern-Care" the single payer plan.

 

[Lurk]

I don't believe there is any mechanism in place that - should the nation go to single payer - to keep costs down.
When someone else is paying the bill - no one sees the need to be frugal.

When Hillary-Care was being debated, a Democrat legislator proposed a bill to entirely nationalize all of the healthcare industry. Medication manufacturers, medical device manufacturers, medical colleges, hospitals, doctors' offices, the whole kit-and-kaboodle. That is the way the Democrats will control costs when they enact "Bern-Care" in the not too distant future.

 

[Hijinx]

When Hillary-Care was being debated, a Democrat legislator proposed a bill to entirely nationalize all of the healthcare industry. Medication manufacturers, medical device manufacturers, medical colleges, hospitals, doctors' offices, the whole kit-and-kaboodle. That is the way the Democrats will control costs when they enact "Bern-Care" in the not too distant future.

Nationalising things hasn't turned out so well for Countries that did it. Venezuela comes to mind, Rhodesia, N Korea.

 

[getbent]

No he did not. We blew him off. That puny fine (which they've never managed to collect from me anyway) is nothing compared to the wastage of tens of thousands of my hard-earned dollars on useless overpriced high-deductible insurance.

How did you manage that? When we filed taxes, Federal took all of our refund because we didn't have insurance.