Damn! My health Insurance went up anther $60 a month. Obamacare sucks!

[dblack]

I believe in doing well, by doing good. Insuring people who had no access to insurance was doing good. Owning the insurance companies that cover them is doing well.

There's no doubt the owners of insurance companies are "doing well".

However, if it had been up to me, I would have made it single payer.

If you're a Democrat, it was up to you.

It is nice to see that you have a sense of humor, black!

Harrumph.... grumble, grumble....

I do have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to ACA. Nothing gets my hackles up more than business teaming up with government to herd people.

 

[JoeB131]

Harrumph.... grumble, grumble....

I do have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to ACA. Nothing gets my hackles up more than business teaming up with government to herd people.

I'm sure your existential angst shouldn't be the basis of policy.

Look, there were ways to avoid some of the worst parts, but they would have involved creating a public option to compete with the insurance companies (kind of like the Post Office keeps UPS and FedEx from gouging their customers) or allowing a MediCare buy in for those over 55.

 

[dblack]

Harrumph.... grumble, grumble....

I do have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to ACA. Nothing gets my hackles up more than business teaming up with government to herd people.

I'm sure your existential angst shouldn't be the basis of policy.

Look, there were ways to avoid some of the worst parts, but they would have involved creating a public option to compete with the insurance companies (kind of like the Post Office keeps UPS and FedEx from gouging their customers) or allowing a MediCare buy in for those over 55.

 

[JoeB131]

Okay, some nut ranting bout evils of government doesn't really constitute an argument.

 

[dblack]

Okay, some nut ranting bout evils of government doesn't really constitute an argument.

Well, no. It doesn't. But a respected journalist like Bill Moyers presenting a well researched piece on the corrupt relationship between corporate lobbyists and Congress comes a little closer, dontcha think?

 

[JoeB131]

Okay, some nut ranting bout evils of government doesn't really constitute an argument.

Well, no. It doesn't. But a respected journalist like Bill Moyers presenting a well researched piece on the corrupt relationship between corporate lobbyists and Congress comes a little closer, dontcha think?

Meh, not really. One man's lobbyist is another man's advocate.

I will admit that the Insurance Companies kept us from getting a public option. But if you want to blame someone, blame ourselves for not challenging these guys.

In this last election, only 8 of 33 Senate elections were actually in play. Only 30 of some 435 house seats. And you wonder why these people pay more attention to lobbyists than voters?

 

[oldunclemark]

it never went up this much in one year. Mandated coverage, increasing prices, and we haven't seen anything yet

You're being conned....blame the insurance companay...they raise it because they know you;re too lazy to switch companies...

 

[oldunclemark]

Poor seniors are the ones who really got screwed by Obamacare.

Yeah..first they had no insurance so they died....Now they live longer and suffer with the rest of us

 

[oldunclemark]

Poor seniors are the ones who really got screwed by Obamacare.

Yeah..first they had no insurance so they died....Now they live longer and suffer with the rest of us

OMG! A loaf of bread is up to $1.99, thanks to Obama!

Yeah it is a little like people watching the weather forecast for "proof" that global warming is a farce. In fact, I'd wage prices for insurance would be going up even faster without ACA - it's a fundamentally dysfunctional market.

The thing is, that's really what needs to happen.

Exactly..folks act like rates never went up before. Insurance companies owned you

 

[oldunclemark]

it never went up this much in one year. Mandated coverage, increasing prices, and we haven't seen anything yet

Shop around...they know you're too lazy to shop around

 

[oldunclemark]

I just paid 44 bucks for medicine that used to cost me 50 cents. No kidding. Thanks to Obama.

Obama didn't raise the price//the corporation that pays off the guy you voted for raised your prices..

 

[Roadrunner]

I just paid 44 bucks for medicine that used to cost me 50 cents. No kidding. Thanks to Obama.

Quit your white bitching!!!!

PPACA is a massive transfer of wealth to the wealth deprived community.

Why do you hate blackfolks?

 

[oldunclemark]

OMG! A loaf of bread is up to $1.99, thanks to Obama!

My dog died. Thanks Obama!!

 

[oldunclemark]

My carrier jacked my premium by $100/month this year as a result of it being amended to ACA compliance.

Next month, It will go up an additional $150/month. Why? To match the rates of the cheapest healthcare.gov policies.

We can not be paying $1,200/month with $13,000 annual family co-pay and $12,000 out of pocket AND expect to keep the kid in college, pay the mortgage, make estimated tax payments on the C-Corp portion of my income, pay real estate taxes, utilities, grocery bills, home and auto insurance premiums, blah blah blah...

Fuck this shit.

Your carrier is playing you.
Shop around.....they know you're too lazy to shop around...

 

[Roadrunner]

Poor seniors are the ones who really got screwed by Obamacare.

As a senior, I've never been happier with my health insurance, except for the donut hole for RX.

Medicare seems ok, but my old insurer, now my secondary insurer, is making a lot of errors.

Most of the time the errors are under $100, and to remedy the error requires more than $100 effort on my part, so, they get away with fucking me over.

What seniors need is dental care.

I am 65 and everything still works at at least 90% or better, except the teeth.

Costs a fortune to have them surgically removed in preparation for implants.

I'd probably have to rob a bank to get the damned implants.

 

[NLT]

it never went up this much in one year. Mandated coverage, increasing prices, and we haven't seen anything yet

Mine more than doubled last year from $254/month to 598/month, this year it is only going up 3%

 

[Roadrunner]

"Obamacare sucks!"

Not if you couldn't afford health insurance before the implementation of the ACA, and now you can afford health insurance.

Not if you have an adult child in college who is allowed to remain on your health insurance.

Not if before the passage of the ACA you were denied health insurance because of a preexisting condition, and now you have health insurance.

For millions of Americans who now have access to affordable healthcare, the ACA doesn't 'suck.'

Consequently, the problem isn't the Act, the problem is with you and most others on the right and your unwarranted opposition to the ACA for purely partisan reasons, along with your efforts to undermine the Act, rather than working to help address its deficiencies – or putting forward you own plan to ensure all American have access to affordable healthcare.

Going back to the bad old days when millions couldn't afford health insurance, as most on the right seem to advocate, is not an option.

Of course millions now have insurance. They have insurance because Obama stole the money from seniors on medicare and working people who were paying for insurance. Typical leftist.

What really pisses me off is the "pre-existing condition" crap.

Why would anyone buy insurance before they were sick, if they can just latch on to insurance when they need it, like a lamprey eel latching on to a trout?

 

[Mr. H.]

My carrier jacked my premium by $100/month this year as a result of it being amended to ACA compliance.

Next month, It will go up an additional $150/month. Why? To match the rates of the cheapest healthcare.gov policies.

We can not be paying $1,200/month with $13,000 annual family co-pay and $12,000 out of pocket AND expect to keep the kid in college, pay the mortgage, make estimated tax payments on the C-Corp portion of my income, pay real estate taxes, utilities, grocery bills, home and auto insurance premiums, blah blah blah...

Fuck this shit.

Your carrier is playing you.
Shop around.....they know you're too lazy to shop around...

Here's what I did. From the "no other choice" column...

For a family of three, the magic number for adjusted gross income is $79,000. At or below this number, subsidies are available. I feel that we'll be so close to this number that I decided to chance it and enroll in the "Marketplace". I'm on a Bronze policy administered through my current insurer. The government picks up $660/month of the premium, and I pay $300/month. IF my AGI exceeds $79K, then adjustments will be made in my premium based on when my AGI was calculated to exceed that $79K and I will be billed (taxed) for the difference after I file my 2015 1040 return.

 

[emilynghiem]

Of course millions now have insurance. They have insurance because Obama stole the money from seniors on medicare and working people who were paying for insurance. Typical leftist.

What really pisses me off is the "pre-existing condition" crap.

Why would anyone buy insurance before they were sick, if they can just latch on to insurance when they need it, like a lamprey eel latching on to a trout?

Dear Roadrunner:

If the system had been set up where people paying into the system are investing in loans to expand medical facilities and educational programs to provide lower cost services through public service internships supervised through medical schools, and this money is DEDUCTED from taxes NOT ADDED TO IT,
then maybe people would have INTEREST and motivation in paying into the system.

It was set up backwards, where people have to fear being punished with fines to force it,
since the money is not going into health care, but insurance companies only agreed to it if they
got huge bailouts paid to them for how much this is going to cost.

==========

Health insurance CEOs immediately demanded a meeting with Obama, which happened in the White House the day after his Friday announcement. According to health insurance lobbyist emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Obama agreed that day to increase payments for both the risk corridor and reinsurance programs.

But some savvy Republicans on Capitol Hill were watching this drama and began to push back. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) even introduced a bill just four days after Obama’s November 15th rule change that would have repealed the risk corridor program entirely. “Washington’s bailout culture must end, and eliminating ObamaCare’s blank check for a bailout of insurance companies is a common sense step to protect taxpayers when ObamaCare fails,” Rubio said in a statement.

Not wanting a fight with Republicans over insurance company bailouts, the first draft of HHS’s regulation governing the risk corridor program, published in March 2014, promised that the program would be implemented in “a budget neutral manner.” In other words, payments out of the program would not be greater than payments into the program. There would be no bailout.

The health insurance industry promptly freaked out. According to emails obtained by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Blue Cross/Blue Shield CEO Chet Burrell sent Obama Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett a memo threatening health insurance premium spikes of “as much as 20 percent” if the risk corridor program was run in a “budget neutral” manner.

Obama got the message. The final HHS regulation published in May 2014 said that, “In the unlikely event of a shortfall for the 2015 program year ... HHS will use other sources of funding for the risk corridor payments.”

In other words, the risk corridor bailout is on.

And according to a survey of Obamacare insurers conducted by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the Obama administration is expected to make $725 million in net payments out of the risk corridor program in 2015 alone. Throw in the increased reinsurance payments and the bailout will top $1 billion.

An Illegal Bailout to Boot

Not only will American taxpayers be bailing out health insurance companies for the foreseeable future, it will be an illegal bailout as well.

According to long-standing federal rules, in order for Congress to properly authorize payment, both the directive to pay an amount, and the source of funds for that payment, must be identified.

And while the risk corridor program does identify who is to be paid (the insurance companies), it never identifies where those funds should come from.

Therefore, in order to fund the risk corridor program at all, Congress must specifically authorize funds to be spent on the program. But the original Obamacare legislation never did this and no subsequent Congress has done so either.

Despite all this, Obama has signaled he will ignore longstanding federal rules and make the risk corridor payments anyway.

What Can Republicans Do Now?

Obama’s risk corridor bailout would not be the first time appropriations were illegally conjured up to save Obamacare. The original Obamacare legislation did not contain any appropriations to build the federal health insurance exchange either. So Obama simply stole $454 million from the law’s “Prevention Fund” program and used it to build the exchanges instead.

Republicans did nothing to stop this illegal spending and they probably will not act to stop the insurance bailout either.

If they wanted to act, they could insert language into the next HHS spending bill specifically forbidding the spending of any funds on the risk corridor program. Then they could dare Obama to veto it.

Will the GOP go to bat for the American people and stop Obama’s illegal insurance company bailout? We will find out next June when the first payment from HHS to insurance companies is set to begin.

GAO: Obama Admin Needs Congress To Approve Obamacare Insurer Bailout

NOTE: I am totally for the collective groups negotiating to set up affordable health care by lowering rates by organizing resources and services more effectively.

But this whole notion of mixing private with public, with MANDATING that citizens pay into it without a choice or say in how the programs work is UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

The way business NORMALLY works, is you set up a school, nonprofit or business
and people try your services by CHOICE, and if they aren't satisfied they can ask for a refund for services not used.

And if your system works so well, it will attract more clients BY CHOICE.

So if you are going to use private systems, then private choice should be respected.

Only if the money is going directly into something the people AGREE to pay for, such as medical education for service providers, or expanding hospitals for vets
can there be mandatory taxation BY REPRESENTATION, not bypassing it with politics.

This program should have been made OPTIONAL and there is nothing wrong with setting up a public option as a choice. But not to MANDATE that people must use the public option in order to get an exemption when there are other choices for paying for health care that are equally if not more viable and sustainable. We need to fund those other options anyway, such as building more medical facilities and educational programs, so why should those venues be FINED and not an equal choice of funding and investing?

 

[rtillx4]

friend of mine expects to ,maybe. earn $8500 this coming year. Bronze for her is minimum, $264 a month with possible $6200 out of pocket. That is $1000+ MORE than she expects to earn. What????