Obama Care vs Republicans

[Lamplighter]

This law was nothing more than an attack on one industry
while completely missing the other cost drivers which are Big Pharma,
Medical equipment manufacturers, hospitals and providers.

Classic, just which "one industry" are you saying is being attacked ?

I doubt you can make the argument that the "health insurance" industry is being attacked.
They (the insurers) are just being given some minimum requirements.
They will still be setting the extent of their coverages, the limits, and the co-pays.
They still are setting the prices as they do now; but subsidies and tax credits
and %-of-income limits will be available to those who may need them, their clients.
So how is the insurance industry being attacked ?

OTOH, it is exactly the hospitals and providers who are being limited in their inflation of costs.
If they don't want to live with the M/M reimbursements, that is their choice.
Unfortunately, their first choice is to pass the difference on to you, the patient.
Eventually, hospitals and providers will come around,
exactly through the mechanisms described in the above article.

Big Pharma is the result of GW Bush and Republican's writing Part D
as forbidding the government from negotiating the cost of proprietary drugs.
So, you end up with "preventative immunizations" like Shingles being
set at Tier 3 (patient pay) at a cost of $200-$400, instead of being free.
Change M/M Part D, and you'll see some major cost reductions.

As I and others are saying, put the blame where it belongs
... on your GOP Governor, and the national leadership of the GOP .

[Happy Monkey]

What industry did it attack? Insurance?

I wish.

It defined some minimum standards for insurance, but added the mandate. Insurance providers were on board. Now they are blaming the ACA for whatever their customers don't like, whether or not the ACA is actually to blame, but they aren't victims here.

edit- "Attacking the problem from limited direction" perhaps, but not attacking the industry.

[classicman]

Eventually, hospitals and providers will come around,

sure they will

Big Pharma is the result of GW Bush and Republican's

Of course its the other teams fault.

As I and others are saying, put the blame where it belongs ....
on the other team. sigh...

[classicman]

More Than 1M Californians Having Insurance Cancelled Due To ACA

"More than 1 million cancellation notices have been sent to Californians as the Affordable Care Act begins allowing individuals to buy insurance through exchanges, Jones said. The federal law requires policies to offer minimum levels of coverage, forcing companies to terminate many existing plans. But Jones said that under the law, insurers have another year to do so."

[Lamplighter]

But Jones said that under the law, insurers have another year to do so."

From here

The policies had been set to expire on Dec. 31
but will be extended until Feb. 28 for those who choose to re-enroll.
Notices informing customers of the extension will be sent out this week

This might be a "Ya' see, Timmy... " moment.

Doesn't that really sound more as tho the policies were going to expire anyway ?
And then the corporation made it's own decision to re-market inferior policies while they still had time.

And then, coincidentally, Anthem Blue Cross also screwed up notices
"due to a computer glitch" and failed to notify some 104K policy holders

Of course, we should never be suspicious of corporate decisions, or their computers.

[Clodfobble]

The federal law requires policies to offer minimum levels of coverage, forcing companies to terminate many existing plans.

...And offer new plans that do meet the guidelines of basic human decency the law. That's like saying the minimum wage "forced" employers to fire all their $2-per-hour workers. Of course the old plans have to go. That was the whole point.

[Lamplighter]

Obama appears to be making some changes to accommodate
those whose "non-ACA-compliant" policies were canceled in 2013.

In his talk today, there were a couple of places where he seemed to be
parsing his words very carefully.
One was when he described the specific policies that would be "grandfathered",
and his sentence ended with something like "and will expire in 2014".
... maybe I heard it wrong.

He also said these insurance providers would have to notify their policy holders
of the specific ways in which these policies do NOT meet the
requirements of the ACA.

I do hope, however, that as part of this political concession, these changes
do not include either the subsidies or the tax credits that are available
in the exchanges for some, based on their income.
Of course, that would undoubtedly set off another chorus of "LIAR"

[Lamplighter]

... maybe I heard it wrong.

I did hear it wrong...

Here is the transcript of what Obama said:

<snip>
Already people who have plans that pre-date the Affordable Care Act
can keep those plans if they haven't changed. That was already in the law.
That's what's called a grandfather clause that was included in the law.
Today we're going to extend that principle both to people whose plans have changed
since the law too[k] effect and to people who bought plans since the law took effect.

So state insurance commissioners still have the power to decide what plans
can and can't be sold in their states, but the bottom line is insurers can extend
current plans that would otherwise be cancelled into 2014. And Americans
whose plans have been cancelled can choose to re-enroll in the same kind of plan.

We're also requiring insurers to extend current plans to inform
their customers about two things:
One, that protections -- what protections these renewed plans don't include.
Number two, that the marketplace offers new options with better coverage
and tax credits that might help you bring down the cost.

So if your received one of these letters I'd encourage you to take a look at the marketplace.
Even if the website isn't working as smoothly as it should be for everybody yet,
the plan comparison tool that lets you browse cost for new plans near you is working just fine.

Now, this fix won't solve every problem for every person, but it's going to help a lot of people.
Doing more will require work with Congress. And I've said from the beginning that
I'm willing to work with Democrats and Republicans to fix problems as they arise.
This is an example of what I was talking about. We can always make this law work better.

It is important to understand, though, that the old individual market was not working well.
And it's important that we don't pretend that somehow that's a place worth going back to.
Too often it works fine as long as you stay healthy. It doesn't work well when you're sick.
So year after year, Americans were routinely exposed to financial ruin or denied coverage
due to minor pre-existing conditions or dropped from coverage altogether even if
they've paid their premiums on time. That's one of the reasons we pursued this reform in the first place.

And that's why I will not accept proposals that are just another brazen attempt
to undermine or repeal the overall law and drag us back into a broken system.
We will continue to make the case, even to folks who choose to keep their own plans,
that they should shop around in the new marketplace because there's a good chance
that they'll be able to buy better insurance at lower cost.
<snip>

[Clodfobble]

Ugh.

My father called tonight to gloat about how Obamacare is "completely falling apart," and haven't I been watching the news in the last two days?! It's "imploding." The whole thing is "going to be dismantled" and The Democrats(tm) will hang their heads in shame!

I dared to disagree with his interpretation of events, and got to listen to another 30 minutes of ranting before I finally got him off the phone. Glurg.

[Lamplighter]

But Clod, in the same vein as InfMonkey described in another thread,
you were given an opportunity for 30 minutes to honor your father

Good on you...

[xoxoxoBruce]

Fuck him, hang up.

[Lamplighter]

So state insurance commissioners still have the power to decide what plans
can and can't be sold in their states, but the bottom line is insurers can extend
current plans that would otherwise be cancelled into 2014. And Americans
whose plans have been cancelled can choose to re-enroll in the same kind of plan.

This attempt on Obama's part to be "no drama Obama" will become the camel's nose for him.
It's not the particular "fix" that he proposes, it's the event of any "change" in the ACA, itself.
The GOP will attack with the fact that he changed it at all, and more changes will never be enough.

IMO, the salvation for Obamacare now lies with the individual State Insurance Commissioners.
The following is a taken from an interview with the State of Washington's Insurance Commissioner.
I sincerely hope others follow suit, just for the reasons he gives.

Washington Post
Sarah Kliff,
November 16

Wash. insurance regulator supports Obamacare — and rejected Obama’s ‘fix.’ Here’s why.

Mike Kreidler has served as insurance commissioner in Washington state since 2000.
Kreidler, an optometrist by training, also served one term in the House of Representatives
and 16 years in the state legislature.

On Thursday, Kreidler was the first insurance commissioner to reject President Obama's proposal
that would give insurers and extra year to sell plans that do not comply with the Affordable Care Act.
He said, in a statement, that he was acting "in the interest of keeping
the consumer protections we have enacted and ensuring that
we keep health insurance costs down for all consumers."

Kreidler and I spoke Friday morning about his decision,
why he thinks it will be difficult for any state to move forward on the Obama proposal
and how he learned of the president's plans.
What follows is a transcript of our discussion, lightly edited for clarity and length.

SK: Putting aside policy concerns for a moment, did you think it would be
logistically possible to allow these plans that were initially barred from the market back in?
MK: If that did happen, they'd have a key interest in wanting to re-rate their products.
They'd be trying to do that when people were already signing up.
That's true for any state, red or blue, they're going to be challenged
to implement this without having a significant impact.

It’s too late in the game, certainly for the state of Washington.
The health plans themselves have said that, as you've heard from AHIP
How do you have one set of rules for some plans and another for others?
It would have been very challenging.

Health carriers in our state were not excited about prospects of this.
And the last thing I wanted to see was the market destabilizing or seeing
significant rate increases impacting the number of people signing up for health insurance.
All of those things were going to be compromised. It’s brought about a lot of consternation.

I strongly support the Affordable Care Act. I know the president wants it to succeed.
And I'm supporting the president by making the Affordable Care Act work in the state of Washington.

SK: How many cancellation notices have Washingtonians received?
MK: There are about 290,000 people in the individual market, and
all of them were sent out discontinuation and replacement notices.
Those notices we don't have authority to regulate, but we did ask the carriers
if we could see them and in a number of cases made suggested changes to them as they went.

There are people out there who are not happy with the fact they received those notices.
Not infrequently the carrier has identified a replacement for them that costs more.
What people don't realize in many cases, and we’ve worked diligently to fix this,
is they need to go look at other plans and what other companies are offering
to see if there's a better fit for them.
<snip>

[orthodoc]

Acknowledge and redirect ... 'We'll have to agree to disagree. So, how are YOU doing?'

[Adak]

No doubt that the roll out of Obamacare, has been a disaster, but I can't see getting excited about it.

It's a big plan, and one that has gone through several changes, so the web site creators didn't get the info they needed, in time to do a good job.

Big deal.

I can blame Obama for a lot of things, but the roll out of his healthcare plan, is the least of them. Everyone with a brain knew that sub-ACA plans wouldn't be able to stay in place for long. They would be (obviously), much cheaper, and thus subvert the ACA goal, wouldn't they?

I relish Obama getting skewered for several other mistakes (Benghazi, etc.), but the ACA roll out? No. We just need to settle down and work with the plan. The time for political action against it, should be over, imo. Obamacare might not be good right now, but it could reasonably do a great job, down the road, after it has received the tweaks it needs.

As for his lying about being able to keep your plan if you liked it. Admit it, you never gave a damn about his several blatant lies in the past several years, but NOW you're incensed?

You're a little late for that, imo.

[Lamplighter]

Hey Adak, good on you. You've come to a reasonable position on Obamacare !

Admit it, you never gave a damn about his several blatant lies in the past several years,...

???

ETA: Added after reading the morning news:

Adak's current position on Obamacare seems to be the way to getting elected in Louisana:

Newsmax
11/17/13

...[Republican]Vance McAllister pulled off a startling upset Saturday night
in the special election for Congress in Louisiana's 5th District,...

The candidates disagreed on next-to-nothing.
Both were strongly pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-Second Amendment, and opposed Obamacare.

The sole difference, as several published reports noted,
was that Riser supported outright repeal while McAllister said repeal
would not work until Republicans took the presidency and Senate
and instead supported fixing the healthcare measure.

A few observers speculated that this convinced some 5th District Democrats
(who had no horse in the run-off) to vote for McAllister over Riser.
<snip>