Loony leftist blames the party that didn’t vote for the legislative atrocity.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: David Harsanyi: “When Will Liberals Answer For Obamacare’s Failures? Is there any accountability in politics for being completely wrong? Not for defenders of Obamacare.”
#ProTip: They’re not “liberals.” There is nothing liberal about them.
Anything to avoid deal with economics. I await Bagdad Jim with the statist party line on this.
Jim’s an idiot that claimed it would save people money. He also said it would end up covering more people. I doubt more young people want to spend another 22% on insurance they don’t need, especially when many are under-employed if employed at all.
Obama did double the
feetax for not having insurance. But it is capped at $2k a year, while the cost of a plan in $2.5k just for the premium. If you are making $40k a year (not bad pay for someone in their early 20’s, living alone and having to cover their own bills); saving $500 is a big deal. Especially since the premium doesn’t cover seeing the doctor when you are sick; because you have an ultra high deductible.The only way for socialized medicine to continue to work in this fashion is for Hillary to do what she always wanted to do: make it illegal to pay doctors directly. Otherwise, doctors have no problem providing medical care for cash. Why would they? An annual physical is just $80, and that’s what most people age 20-40 need. People that age don’t need to subsidize healthcare for retiring baby boomers.
Health costs would be lower for everybody and probably wouldn’t need insurance for anything by catastrophic events; if we just adopted the one thing that many European countries have: no free range tort. Instead, potential medical malpractice is sent to a board consisting of mostly doctors that determine the degree of malpractice and an appropriate sum to pay to a victim. But tort lawyers are just behind terrorist countries and labor unions in the money they provide to Hillary Clinton.
Jim’s an idiot that claimed it would save people money.
It has saved people huge amounts of money.
Yes, as long as it was being subsidized… by other people. Now that it isn’t being subsidized, the real costs are coming through.
I believe you told us there would be at least 22 million in it by now, but there are only 11 million.
Say hi to David Brock for me over at Media Matters.
Yes, as long as it was being subsidized
We saved tons even before subsidies. Read the linked study.
Now that it isn’t being subsidized
It’s still subsidized for low-income participants.
I believe you told us there would be at least 22 million in it by now, but there are only 11 million.
Exchange enrollment is way under projections, because the projections assumed that many employers would drop their group coverage, sending the employees into the exchanges. That, you’ll recall, was one of the knocks on the law. But for whatever reason, it hasn’t happened, and the result has actually saved the government money (since federal subsidies are provided through the exchanges, not for employer-provided group coverage).
We saved tons even before subsidies. Read the linked study.
We as in you. Not for any normal working stiff.
It’s still subsidized for low-income participants.
The insurance companies are no longer being subsidized, which is why the costs are going up.
Exchange enrollment is way under projections, because the projections assumed that many employers would drop their group coverage, sending the employees into the exchanges. That, you’ll recall, was one of the knocks on the law. But for whatever reason, it hasn’t happened, and the result has actually saved the government money (since federal subsidies are provided through the exchanges, not for employer-provided group coverage).
You made assumptions because something this complex cannot be handled by the Mandarin class who can only handle one or two variables in their faulty reasoning, not to mention the payoffs and cronyism.
Hey, Jim links to an organization backing the Clintons. Based on the WikiLeaks emails, its a safe bet they skewing things. Interesting that according to the links graph, healthcare premium estimates dropped from 2014 to 2016 based on a 2014 report; although the article blog post was written 3 months ago, prior to the announcement of the premium rate hike. A previous graphic even shows the increasing rates, but they are claiming a savings over their bad predictions from 2009.
So I repeat; Jim’s an idiot that claimed it would save people money.
Thank you, Leland. I wanted to take a closer look, but couldn’t. Jim always links to spurious web sites and I was suspicious.
Jon,
The blog writers are from the Brookings Institute and so is their data, which is primarily a bunch of “we got our predictions wrong before, and are new predictions claim things are getting better”. The Brookings Institute, in case you don’t know their partisanship, has a special division to study the Middle East named after Haim Saban, as in Power Rangers.
Saban is reported as having given the Hillary Clinton campaign $6.4 million. He also claims to want to take private money out of politics, while conducting strategy sessions with John Podesta on how to attack Trump. So he’s a liar in the style of Hillary and Jim; yet the Brookings Institute thinks highly of him.
Obamacare exchange premiums for 2017 are almost exactly what was forecast in 2009 when the law was under discussion. The premiums in 2014, 2015, and 2016 were way below projections. So the unexpected savings appear to be over, but we did pocket a lot of money the last three years, while coverage expanded to an additional 20 million people, and for the first time was available to every citizen, regardless of pre-existing conditions. All in all, a public policy victory to celebrate.
An additional 20 million people? Liar, liar. It’s only 11 million. Far, far below your promises. Please don’t include Medicaid either, that’s just welfare.
Expected savings? Where is the $2500.00 less promised by Obama?
How are your buddies over at Media Matters doing?
An additional 20 million have coverage. Something like 11 million are in the exchanges. Different numbers for different things. Medicaid is coverage.
Where is the $2500.00 less promised by Obama?
The slowdown in health care and premium inflation has, on average, saved each family at least that much. Read the Health Affairs study linked from my other comment.
You promised many, many more. Medicaid is not coverage because those same people could have been covered at any time.
I don’t know a single person who has saved money. Here is a critical line from your precious report:
Health insurance was expensive before the ACA and continues to be, but the ACA appears to have had a salutary impact on premiums even while providing more robust coverage.
More forced coverage. The removal of catastrophic plans ideal for many people. Giving men pap smears, women testicular exams among others. You cobbled millions into three plans that offered coverage but to make these plans feasible, insurance companies had to raise the deductible to keep the premiums low.
Until you show me the donor list for Project Hope, there is no reason to take your link seriously.
A friend of mine is reviewing her options for exchange plans for 2017, which feature $14,000 deductibles.
That’s fourteen thousand dollars, Jimbo. And since it’s an exchange plan, as mentioned upthread, (essentially) nothing’s covered before that’s met.
Medicaid is not coverage because those same people could have been covered at any time.
I’m not sure what you mean here. If you have Medicaid, you have a way to pay for necessary health care. That’s coverage. Millions of people have coverage that they did not have before, and could not get before.
And since it’s an exchange plan, as mentioned upthread, (essentially) nothing’s covered before that’s met.
All exchange plans cover preventative care at zero out-of-pocket cost. Some exchange plans cover other things before the deductible is met (e.g. drugs and PCP office visits for a fixed copay), some don’t.
Once against Jim, Obamacare is more than just subsidies. It f’d over the entire insurance and healthcare industry.
You don’t even know what preventative care means as it is being practiced, otherwise you wouldn’t be touting this as a positive.
Staggering increases in prices and decreases in choice (all against Obama’s 30+ time he promised the opposite), is all part of the plan:
Driving the herd to the cliff of single payer.
Jim likes to forget that the promise was that people’s premiums would drop by $2500….not increase more slowly.
Jim also likes to ignore that fact that people’s deductible have been skyrocketing…thereby wiping out any purported “savings”.. This of course hurts the people who need the insurance the most – the ill.
He also forgets that people would be allowed to retain their insurance policy if they liked it. That was a lie. And now they can’t even keep the policy they were forced to take, and loathe, as the exchanges are dying.
He also forgets that the promise is that if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor. That, too, was a lie.
There’s a lot of things he likes to forget, for it’s the only way he can claim this monstrosity is a policy “success”.
Jim also likes to ignore that fact that people’s deductible have been skyrocketing
Read the Health Affairs study, it takes deductibles into account as part of plans’ actuarial value.
Health Affairs is a partisan blog backed by Democrat supporters. Next you’ll tell us that Obama learned of the double digit increase from the news reports, just like the rest of us.
Its funny Jim. You kept telling me things that weren’t true. You said my plan would cover prescriptions, it didn’t. You said there was an out of pocket cap that accounted for my deductible increase of 222% to $6800. But now, my deductible is over $7,000.
I lost my doctor and my insurance and the new Obamacare compliant plans are junk. I pay all of my medical costs out of pocket, even though I pay a monthly tax that far exceeds my costs. And because insurance costs so much, I can’t afford to pay for actual healthcare.
Whenever I tell my personal experiences to Democrats who like to quote their fake statistics, they laugh and say I deserve the bad things that have happened.
Obamacare is a fascist system designed to destroy the healthcare industry. Top down command economies that rely on price fixing and hiding costs through subterfuge are doomed to fail. Its why Venezuela doesn’t have toilet paper.
A handful of congress people and unelected unaccountable bureaucrats will never be able to run the healthcare industry. They don’t have the creativity of millions of entrepreneurs and researchers. And with government deciding what goods and services can come to market, innovation will stagnate and decline.
But at least a bunch of Democrat donors got rich huh?
I note Jim wants us to look at studies rather than asking people like you, Wodun.
The information I provided earlier on prices comes straight from the markets. That data matches your own, and I’m sure for the same reason. I don’t know a single person forced into the market that has kept their doctor. I don’t know a single sick person forced on the market saving money. I do know people refused to have their medical care paid for by insurers; care they used to receive before being forced into the ACA market.
Something else Jim’s studies don’t show is the destruction of small practices. Just like Democrat policies destroy family farms and other family owned businesses, they destroy small practices.
Democrats claim to be against Monsanto and large corporations running farms but this is the outcome of their policies. Doctors can’t afford to have their own practices, or belong to small groups, anymore. The regulatory hurdles are too high.
Obamacare took the worst parts of the old government managed system and made them worse and took the best parts and kicked them in the nuts.
Maybe they think the path to single customer is through single provider.
“Read the Health Affairs study, it takes deductibles into account as part of plans’ actuarial value.”
I read it. All of it. It makes many huge assumptions.
And I can show you similar studies from similarly partisan groups (opposite side) that say exactly the opposite.
You never vet a study if it supports your delusions. You should learn to do that. Otherwise you look very weak…very partisan.
And I can show you similar studies from similarly partisan groups (opposite side) that say exactly the opposite.
By all means, please do.
“There’s one thing for sure: no matter what happens, liberal cheerleaders of Obamacare will continue to act as if the law was an awe-inspiring success.”
David Harsanyi is a Senior Editor at The Federalist.
Ain’t that the truth.
We can all thank Marco Rubio for ending the subsidies on Obamacare.
Thank you Senator Rubio.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-marco-rubio-is-quietly-killing-obamacare/2015/12/14/c706849a-a275-11e5-b53d-972e2751f433_story.html?utm_term=.830ce5ef8170
Hmm, I didn’t like Rubio much, but that was pretty good.
This was one of his redeeming qualities. Too bad he fell for the Gang of 8 trap.
From the left’s standpoint ObamaCare is a huge success because it allows idiots that don’t pay for it a free lunch so they remain a loyal voting block. Arguing the economics of it falls on deaf ears.
Don’t forget it rewarded their donors in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries while creating new layers of bureaucrats and activist group jobs to give to party cronies. It also creates more channels to funnel dark money through to engage in political shenanigans and organize violence.
Jim stands in a large field on top of a tree stump. Surrounding him are hundreds of thousands of people who got royally screwed by Obamacare. Yet Jim stands there holding up a sheaf of papers crying:
“But the studies show it’s working!”
Anecdotes are a poor substitute for data. There’s another very large field with 20+ million people who have coverage that they didn’t have before. A smaller, but still large field, with tens of thousands of people who are alive thanks to the law.
The right looks at the ample evidence of the ACA’s success and simply chooses to disbelieve, because it does not fit into their worldview.
“Anecdotes are a poor substitute for data. ”
And yet if you provide anything they are always anecdotes. Your vaunted “study” is a partisan sham.
You also cannot recognize satire when you see it.
There is no ample evidence of Obama-cides success and you know it.
You also know that even Obama was forced to admit that the “starter home” needs work.
Hillary said the same thing in a debate with Trump, as I quoted. Even she said the premiums were too high.
In March, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that premium subsidies in 2016 would come to $43 billion, or about $4,240 per subsidized enrollee.
That’s money that comes out of your pocket and the amount is growing.
The youth are not behaving as you will them to behave and you know it.
I repeat:
“There’s one thing for sure: no matter what happens, liberal cheerleaders of Obamacare will continue to act as if the law was an awe-inspiring success.”
David Harsanyi is a Senior Editor at The Federalist.
And you, Jim, are the prime example. There’s no point in trying to convince you of anything. I gave that up long ago.
Considering you don’t know what coverage or care is like for those people, you shouldn’t be bringing it up.
So now we have the woman who is terminally ill and who wants a chemo treatment that might keep her alive longer:
Then her doctors suggested that switching to another chemotherapy drug might buy her time. Her medical insurance company refused to pay. She says she asked if the company covered the cost of drugs to put her to death. She was told the answer is yes — with a co-payment of $1.20.
“My jaw dropped.”
Now the first thing that would need to be checked out is the actual contract with the Insurance company. Is the Insurance company on the hook for paying for the chemo? If so you have a very nice lawsuit with which to beat the insurance company into submission.
Does the contract say the insurance company has the right to essentially pull the plug on the insured?
…and there is simply no way that a 22-25% premium increase falls within “rising more slowly”. Even Hillary agreed:
“Well, I think Donald was about to say he’s going to solve it by repealing it and getting rid of the Affordable Care Act. And I’m going to fix it, because I agree with you. Premiums have gotten too high. Copays, deductibles, prescription drug costs, and I’ve laid out a series of actions that we can take to try to get those costs down.”
Here’s the sort of person Jim loves to ignore:
Like many other Americans, I got a letter last week. This letter is becoming an annual tradition, arriving on my doorstep in October to inform me of my Obamacare insurance premium hike.
Last year, the letter said my Bronze plan, purchased on the marketplace formed by the, ahem, Affordable Care Act, would increase by almost 60 percent.
This year, my premium is going up 96 percent. Ninety-six percent. My monthly payment, which was the amount of a decent car payment, is now the size of a moderate mortgage. The president refers to these for thousands of citizens as “a few bugs” when to us it feels like a flameout.
For this astronomical payment, I get a plan with an astronomical deductible that my healthy family of three will likely never hit except in the most catastrophic of circumstances.
http://thefederalist.com/2016/10/27/defective-obamacare-health-insurance-product-just-blew/
Screw ’em Jim says. Got to break a few innocent eggs to make an omelete…said omelet bing to get other people on healthcare (NOT insurance).
Jim loves top quote the CBO – WHEN it supports his delusions.
But now, they do not:
“Subsidies do not erase premiums; they shift the costs to taxpayers, which is why skyrocketing premiums matter to everyone. ”
Something Jim conveniently forgets…..
In March, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that premium subsidies in 2016 would come to $43 billion, or about $4,240 per subsidized enrollee. A 25 percent increase in premiums would increase that cost to $5,525 for 2017 if the out-of-pocket deductible remains $75, a 30.3 percent increase. That far outstrips the original projections for the cost of Obamacare, which means that the program will go far into the red rather than finish its first decade deficit-neutral as promised.”
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/10/27/Hillary-Clinton-Hints-Health-Care-Takeover-Keep-Obamacare-Alive
Note well:
“…far outstrips the original projections for the cost of Obamacare…”
Geee that’s not what Jim says……..
Insurers say it though:
“Not even the insurers selling the product believe that argument. “Young people can do the math,” Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told a Bloomberg conference in New York, describing their priorities as “gas for the car, beer on Fridays and Saturdays, health insurance.” Unlike Earnest and the Obama administration, Bertolini understands exactly what the problem is – a lack of value. “As the rates rise, the healthier people pull out because the out-of-pocket costs aren’t worth it.””
And as we all know the young people were supposed to finance this hideous monstrosity.
And here is the money shot:
“As insurance companies have found themselves stuck in the vicious cycle of rising costs and narrowing risk pools, they have begun exiting the ACA exchanges altogether, which has left some consumers with two or fewer options. Clinton proposes to “improve choices and increase competition” not by remedying the mandates for comprehensive coverage and community pricing, but by reviving “a public option.””
“After more than six years, the Obama administration has proven one thing – they have no clue how to run a health insurance market. Hillary Clinton has made clear that she has no more insight than a rehash of the same arguments that have led to this debacle.”
And this was predicted on the first day Obama-cide was proposed.
If those that are in awe of Obama-cide’s beauty and efficiency would merely apply the Parable of the Pencil – and if they were honest with themselves – they would realizer that 500 or a thousand knuckleheads in DC cannot efficiently run a health care system.
What do you suppose Jim’s position is? The ACA is working just fine-and-dandy? Well, good, then we don’t an even bigger government intervention such as Public Option or Single Payer let alone repeal the Rubio amendments on restricting government bailouts of insurance carriers.
It is working OK, but well, alright, it could use a few “tweaks” and “fixes.” That thing Senator Rubio did to starve it of money was just plain Republican nasty obstructionism of a good law.
Is that the position? That well, yes, mayyybeee it isn’t working exactly as planned, but nothing a little bi-partisan cooperation couldn’t fix?
Well then, what about that bi-partisan cooperation and whatever became of it? Does a person think, does a person suppose, that the relentless criticism, “fact checking”, and all-around snarkism in addressing any and all criticism of the law and its implementation and consequences, that such ‘tude might have the effect of further polarizing people and making bi-partisan cooperation even less likely?
Is I’m right and you are wrong a bit stupid, too, as a “‘tude” might be working the wrong way in recruiting the necessary cooperation to fix those, yes, minor flaws of an otherwise good law?
Maybe this cooperation is not needed. Maybe no one needs to be persuaded differently apart from telling them they are wrong-headed. Maybe the ACA is the Mary Poppins’ nanny state, Positively Perfect in Every Way. Maybe the proponents of the law don’t need any changes so they don’t need any help, they don’t need to change anyone’s mind, and they can keep saying what they have been saying.
Just saying.
“Is I’m right and you are wrong a bit stupid, too, as a “‘tude” might be working the wrong way in recruiting the necessary cooperation to fix those, yes, minor flaws of an otherwise good law?”
The plan is unfixable because:
1) It violates the basic laws of economics
2) The Pencil Parable
3) Fails to take into account human nature
4) Is thousands of pages long chock full of crony gifts
5) Is incoherent.
6) Doesn’t address basic issues (e.g. Tort reform which drives up costs)
7) No Central Command operation can efficiently run a health care “economy”.
8) Was sold on the basis of known lies and so now no one trusts the Dems on this any more
9) Distorts the market.
The GOP was right to not vote for it and continues to be right in not lifting a finger to fix an unfixable monstrosity.
Oh and I forget:
10) Everything that’s coming to pass was predicted and easily so. What makes you think that people who understood why it would fail (and were proven correct) would ever want to fix it?
Permit me to clarify my main point.
There will be pressure to “fix” or “tweak” the ACA. You are already getting this vibe from both Clintons and the one Biden and others. There will be the arm twisting to obtain Republican cooperation.
The points you make are fine, but will they impact the political process from trying to “double down” on this law?
What I am saying is that to Jim and others, the law is called the PPACA or Practically Perfect Affordable Care Act named after the Practically Perfect nanny — Mary Poppins. Jim is not admitting to any flaws that need correcting, and to the end of making any corrections or tweaks to the law, he is certainly not saying anything to encourage any defections from opponents of this law to do that. How do you get any bi-partisan cooperation if you are “in the face” of the people of whom you need to garner cooperation all the time? Or is that the Barack Obama style of no-more-politics-as-usual (i.e., the bad kind of politics-as-usual of regarding political opponents as acting in good faith and trying to reach a middle ground).
To the extent that people are saying that the law is great, we need to hold them to it and hold firm to any calls for any compromise — they are saying that the law doesn’t need any changes and that the people opposed to the law are all misinformed and misguided fools?
Jim is not admitting to any flaws that need correcting
On the contrary, I’m happy to point to plenty of things that could be improved.
To the extent that people are saying that the law is great, we need to hold them to it and hold firm to any calls for any compromise — they are saying that the law doesn’t need any changes and that the people opposed to the law are all misinformed and misguided fools?
The law is great. Some changes would make it even better. Some of the law’s opponents are misinformed and misguided. There is no inconsistency between these facts.
File this under “Karma can be a bitch:”
http://www.imao.us/index.php/2016/10/cartoon-of-the-day-obamacare-5/
Jim might be on to something. What if the govt. forced people that don’t own cars to buy car insurance? Think of all the money that could be saved! They even promise I can keep my car if I like my car.
Insurance exists because it is a profitable business and competition keeps the price as low as possible. Govt. doesn’t work that way.