Four hard truths of health care reform

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

So your employer knew the plan he was signing you up for ran afoul of the law at the time he signed you up for it.

How would he know that? Did Obamacare exist 5 years ago? 10? Does his employer have a time machine? Psychics? Are you just stupid?

I vote for the latter.

He said his employer purchased the plan after passage (as that's the only way it would not qualify for the grandfather clause).

I never said that....go read the response again...here let me get it for you

Not true, our existing small business group plan allowed for employess to refuse to be covered as long as they signed a waiver.

This plan is no longer allowed under obamacare and there is no "grandfather" clause that would allow my employer to continue with the same exact small business group plan and coverage situation we have had for years.

Banyan News: Health Care Reform Bulletin Grandfather Clause

That has now expired since 2010, which is why I didn't have to change until now.

What you linked actually backs up what I was saying: (BTW I'm not union and we didn't collectively bargain for our insurance here)

Collectively bargained multi-employer and single employer plans in effect on March 23, 2010 are not subject to the Reform Act rules until the date on which the last of the collective bargaining agreements relating to the coverage terminates. At that time, a collectively bargained plan is then subject to health care reform rules and, assuming it remains grandfathered (based on the rules then in effect), it would have to comply with the requirements for grandfathered plans. The Reform Act specifically provides, however, that a collectively bargained plan is permitted to be amended early for some or all of the Reform Act’s rules. This voluntary amendment will not be treated as a termination of the collective bargaining agreement which might otherwise subject the plan to an earlier Reform Act compliance deadline.

 

[UpAndAbout]

Why is it the government's business, why does anyone IN the government care whether I have health insurance or not? Maybe I don't go to the doctor. And why is it anybody's business who is NOT in the government care whether I have health insurance or not? There are free medical clinics. No ER is going to turn away somebody who can't pay, it's against the law. If I have a catastrophic illness/accident and no insurance, I'll be treated. I'll arrange to pay 5 bucks a month if need be. They are doing this masked as helping us, caring, when in reality is a means of controlling us, doctors, hospitals, etc. I say to the government: don't call us, we'll call you. If we need you, we'll let you know, otherwise butt out. Kind of like with my married daughter - if she needs me she'll call, otherwise I leave her to her own devices. When I'm dead and gone, she'll be on her own, then what? if I'm constantly helping and controlling, my god she's almost 40!

 

[editec]

Some people won't get to keep the coverage they like.

Undoubtably true

Costs aren't going to go down.

Not in the long run. Probably not in the short run either.

It's just a guess that the law can pay for itself.

Yup.

The more they know the more they'll like it isn't happening.

Who is "they"?

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Some people won't get to keep the coverage they like.

Undoubtably true

Costs aren't going to go down.

Not in the long run. Probably not in the short run either.

It's just a guess that the law can pay for itself.

Yup.

The more they know the more they'll like it isn't happening.

Who is "they"?

they= people who live under the new Affordable Health Care Act AKA Obamacare = American citizens.

 

[Polk]

That has now expired since 2010, which is why I didn't have to change until now.

What you linked actually backs up what I was saying: (BTW I'm not union and we didn't collectively bargain for our insurance here)

So your employer knew the plan he was signing you up for ran afoul of the law at the time he signed you up for it.

You must be assuming I got on this plan after Obama became president, i've had this plan since Bush Jr.'s first term.......

try again to defelct the fact that obama straight up LIED about Obamacare in this respect....that one failed too, what is that 3 failed attempts now?

If you've had the plan for that long, it falls under the grandfather clause. I made that assumption because you said it did not qualify for the clause (which would only be true if the policy were enacted after the ACA was passed).

 

[Quantum Windbag]

This article is nonsense.

1. People leaving their existing policies because they can get better coverage elsewhere is a negative?
2. No one ever claimed the bill was decrease health care costs. The argument was always about decreasing the rate of growth. Since the law hasn't taken effect yet, we can't answer this question one way or the other, but results from individual states (Mass.) and countries that have undertaken similar reforms (Switzerland) look promising.
3. That's true, but meaningless. The entire budget is guess-work.
4. That's true, but why should anyone care? Just because an idea is unpopular doesn't make it bad policy, any more than being popular would make something good policy.

1. The article did not say that was a negative, did they? They just pointed out that, in the context of Obama's promise that you could keep your coverage if you wanted, Obamacare is a failure.
2. No one? Ever? Seriously? I bet I could find plenty of people who made that claim, starting at the top with the President of the United States. PolitiFact | Obama said health care reform will reduce the cost of health care Want to try again?
3. Which makes it OK in what way?
4. Can you name a piece of good policy that got more unpopular as time went on?

1. That's an absurd standard. People purchase insurance to cover potential costs, not out of some deep and abiding love of Aetna's Plan ABC.
2. That canard has already been disposed of. If you actually read the link, you'd see he is referring to lower costs in the context of projected future increases.
3. Because the entire act of writing a budget is based on assumptions about the future. To say the ACA is bad because of that, while ignoring that's true of every proposal is absurd. Paul Ryan's plan to gut Medicare is also based on assumptions about the future.
4. The space program.

1. What makes it absurd? Is it because, using that standard you can't claim the article said it was negative? If employers are forced to change plans to something "better," even if they don't want to, they don't get to keep their insurance. End of story.
2. No he isn't, unless you accept that what he is saying now is what he said back then. Which I do not.
3. The entire act of writing a budget is based on assumptions about 1 year, not an indefinite period of time that stretches to eternity. the PPACA is built on projections that stretch well beyond what is required to write, and pass, a budget.
4. Space got more unpopular? With who? Just because Obama cancelled it does not mean it was unpopular.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

That's an absurd argument, as your employer would have made the same decision even if the ACA had never been passed.

Why would his employer have elected to switch policies to comply with mandates that don't exist?

Talk about absurd.

If his policy existed before passage, it was already grandfathered in until the middle of the decade. So yes, the change is entirely elective on his employer's part.

I love it when idiots assume things to mean something that they do not.

Grandfathered plans have to meet eligibility requirements to be considered to be grandfathered. Those requirements are a bit more complicated than simply existing in the first place. For one thing, no policies bought by an individual are ever grandfathered, which threw my simple plan out the window before the discussion even began.

Grandfathered plans are also not available to new hires, or even to people who were working at the company but not enrolled. That would, in effect, force an employer to carry a separate policy for anyone who opted not to buy insurance before the grandfathered date and those who did, which, believe it or not, is really expensive, or buy select a new policy that meets the mandated standards and force everyone to switch.

That makes you out to be an idiot for not knowing that, or a lair because you do know it and want to make it look like it wasn't a choice forced on the employer by the government. Given you personal posting history, I weigh toward believing the latter, but I would be willing to believe you if you want to come in and say you are an idiot.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I'm not wrong. It's not my fault you can't read.

"Now, I just want to repeat this because there's so much misinformation about the cost issue here. You talk to every health care economist out there and they will tell you that whatever ideas are -- whatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses, and government, those elements are in this bill."

He's referring to costs relative to the projected rate of increase, not in absolute terms.

Whatever you think he was referring to, what he said was "We agree on reforms that will finally reduce the costs of health care." He was wrong.

Context matters. It's helps to not cherry pick.

Even if I was cherry picking, Politifact went out of their way to interpret that statement as favorably as they could imagine, and they still rated it a lie.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

So your employer knew the plan he was signing you up for ran afoul of the law at the time he signed you up for it.

How would he know that? Did Obamacare exist 5 years ago? 10? Does his employer have a time machine? Psychics? Are you just stupid?

I vote for the latter.

He said his employer purchased the plan after passage (as that's the only way it would not qualify for the grandfather clause).

No he didn't, he said his employer was forced to buy a new plan to comply with the law. There are, quite literally, a dozen ways for a plan not to qualify for grandfathered status, the simplest of which is that it the company hires a new employee.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

I am not being dishonest about anything.

Already good so you are ready to retract your stupid statment that Obamacare increases the deficit because of a Doc paying plan that was passed int he 90;s

The way Obamacare was written is that it would save money adhering to baseline spending.

Yep and that baseline spending is curved down and reduces the deficit

And that has nothing to do with Obamacare.


Plz copy and paste the section where Obamacare makes it law that the doc fix will not be increased.

In case you didn't get what I just said, I called you a liar for trying to argue that the assumed baseline is not part of Obamacare.

I called you a laou because you were lying saying that Obamacare would increase the deficit because of other laws.
Plz try not tos sound like a complete retard the next time you post

By the way, I linked to the CBO report earlier, feel free to go back and read the actual report, then come back here and show me where it says what you claim it says.

"The CBO estimates that the insurance coverage costs of PPACA will be just under $1.1 trillion from 2012 to 2021. This represents a $50 billion decrease in CBO’s estimate from March 2011."
Try actually read your sources then maybe you wont be caught lying

Why would I retract the truth? The only way your position makes sense is if (a) Congress was completely unaware of the medicare payment problem or (b) Obama had kept his campaign promise to pass a permanent doc fix. Do you honestly want to argue either of those positions?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

So your employer knew the plan he was signing you up for ran afoul of the law at the time he signed you up for it.

You must be assuming I got on this plan after Obama became president, i've had this plan since Bush Jr.'s first term.......

try again to defelct the fact that obama straight up LIED about Obamacare in this respect....that one failed too, what is that 3 failed attempts now?

If you've had the plan for that long, it falls under the grandfather clause. I made that assumption because you said it did not qualify for the clause (which would only be true if the policy were enacted after the ACA was passed).

It is only grandfathered if (a) it is part of a collective bargaining agreement aka union contract or every individual that works for the company is covered by that plan or another plan that is also grandfathered. Individuals withing in a company can switch from one grandfathered plan to another within the same company, but new hires can only enroll in a grandfathered plan if they are part of the union. Even then, once the collective bargaining agreement is expired, the plan is no longer grandfathered in, which will probably cause a stink when people find out they loose their union negotiated health care benefits.

Considering that less than 10% of private sector workers are union, and that most small businesses do not offer multiple plans, why don't you give me an estimate of the number of plans that actually manage to fit through the grandfather clause.

 

[starcraftzzz]

Why would I retract the truth? The only way your position makes sense is if (a) Congress was completely unaware of the medicare payment problem or (b) Obama had kept his campaign promise to pass a permanent doc fix. Do you honestly want to argue either of those positions?

If we were talking about the Doc fix then id argue a position on it, but given that the Doc fiz has nothing to do with Obamacare only shows pathedic you are that you can;t even come up with a real argument against Obamacare

 

[Polk]

1. The article did not say that was a negative, did they? They just pointed out that, in the context of Obama's promise that you could keep your coverage if you wanted, Obamacare is a failure.
2. No one? Ever? Seriously? I bet I could find plenty of people who made that claim, starting at the top with the President of the United States. PolitiFact | Obama said health care reform will reduce the cost of health care Want to try again?
3. Which makes it OK in what way?
4. Can you name a piece of good policy that got more unpopular as time went on?

1. That's an absurd standard. People purchase insurance to cover potential costs, not out of some deep and abiding love of Aetna's Plan ABC.
2. That canard has already been disposed of. If you actually read the link, you'd see he is referring to lower costs in the context of projected future increases.
3. Because the entire act of writing a budget is based on assumptions about the future. To say the ACA is bad because of that, while ignoring that's true of every proposal is absurd. Paul Ryan's plan to gut Medicare is also based on assumptions about the future.
4. The space program.

1. What makes it absurd? Is it because, using that standard you can't claim the article said it was negative? If employers are forced to change plans to something "better," even if they don't want to, they don't get to keep their insurance. End of story.
2. No he isn't, unless you accept that what he is saying now is what he said back then. Which I do not.
3. The entire act of writing a budget is based on assumptions about 1 year, not an indefinite period of time that stretches to eternity. the PPACA is built on projections that stretch well beyond what is required to write, and pass, a budget.
4. Space got more unpopular? With who? Just because Obama cancelled it does not mean it was unpopular.

1. The article never directly said it's negative, but that's the clear implication.
2. The same thing has been being said all along. You've got to pay attention of the entirety of what's being said, not cherry-picking sentences.
3. While the budget only appropriates funds for a single year, it often contains further reaching provisions. Look at the Ryan budget as an example. The Medicare proposal is based on a series of assumptions about the future.
4. The space program has always been unpopular. The space program and foreign aid are almost always the first two things people cite as wasteful government spending.

 

[Polk]

Whatever you think he was referring to, what he said was "We agree on reforms that will finally reduce the costs of health care." He was wrong.

Context matters. It's helps to not cherry pick.

Even if I was cherry picking, Politifact went out of their way to interpret that statement as favorably as they could imagine, and they still rated it a lie.

That's not even remotely true. Politifact has a militant anti-Obama bias. If he said water is wet, they'd rate that as a lie and use ice as their justification.

 

[Polk]

You must be assuming I got on this plan after Obama became president, i've had this plan since Bush Jr.'s first term.......

try again to defelct the fact that obama straight up LIED about Obamacare in this respect....that one failed too, what is that 3 failed attempts now?

If you've had the plan for that long, it falls under the grandfather clause. I made that assumption because you said it did not qualify for the clause (which would only be true if the policy were enacted after the ACA was passed).

It is only grandfathered if (a) it is part of a collective bargaining agreement aka union contract or every individual that works for the company is covered by that plan or another plan that is also grandfathered. Individuals withing in a company can switch from one grandfathered plan to another within the same company, but new hires can only enroll in a grandfathered plan if they are part of the union. Even then, once the collective bargaining agreement is expired, the plan is no longer grandfathered in, which will probably cause a stink when people find out they loose their union negotiated health care benefits.

Considering that less than 10% of private sector workers are union, and that most small businesses do not offer multiple plans, why don't you give me an estimate of the number of plans that actually manage to fit through the grandfather clause.

False. The language referring to collective bargaining has to do with the expiration date of the plans.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

If you've had the plan for that long, it falls under the grandfather clause. I made that assumption because you said it did not qualify for the clause (which would only be true if the policy were enacted after the ACA was passed).

It is only grandfathered if (a) it is part of a collective bargaining agreement aka union contract or every individual that works for the company is covered by that plan or another plan that is also grandfathered. Individuals withing in a company can switch from one grandfathered plan to another within the same company, but new hires can only enroll in a grandfathered plan if they are part of the union. Even then, once the collective bargaining agreement is expired, the plan is no longer grandfathered in, which will probably cause a stink when people find out they loose their union negotiated health care benefits.

Considering that less than 10% of private sector workers are union, and that most small businesses do not offer multiple plans, why don't you give me an estimate of the number of plans that actually manage to fit through the grandfather clause.

False. The language referring to collective bargaining has to do with the expiration date of the plans.

It also has to do with the type of plans that are protected, which are only those plans that were collectively bargained for.

You aren't interpreting it correctly.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

1. That's an absurd standard. People purchase insurance to cover potential costs, not out of some deep and abiding love of Aetna's Plan ABC.
2. That canard has already been disposed of. If you actually read the link, you'd see he is referring to lower costs in the context of projected future increases.
3. Because the entire act of writing a budget is based on assumptions about the future. To say the ACA is bad because of that, while ignoring that's true of every proposal is absurd. Paul Ryan's plan to gut Medicare is also based on assumptions about the future.
4. The space program.

1. What makes it absurd? Is it because, using that standard you can't claim the article said it was negative? If employers are forced to change plans to something "better," even if they don't want to, they don't get to keep their insurance. End of story.
2. No he isn't, unless you accept that what he is saying now is what he said back then. Which I do not.
3. The entire act of writing a budget is based on assumptions about 1 year, not an indefinite period of time that stretches to eternity. the PPACA is built on projections that stretch well beyond what is required to write, and pass, a budget.
4. Space got more unpopular? With who? Just because Obama cancelled it does not mean it was unpopular.

1. The article never directly said it's negative, but that's the clear implication.
2. The same thing has been being said all along. You've got to pay attention of the entirety of what's being said, not cherry-picking sentences.
3. While the budget only appropriates funds for a single year, it often contains further reaching provisions. Look at the Ryan budget as an example. The Medicare proposal is based on a series of assumptions about the future.
4. The space program has always been unpopular. The space program and foreign aid are almost always the first two things people cite as wasteful government spending.

1. The fact that Obamacare is forcing some people off their insurance is a negative.
2. Obama said that it would reduce people's premiums, period. Now he is saying that it will reduce the increase, which is also a lie. Either way, he lied.
3. Which can be ignored by the next Congress because they are not binding. That makes any spending in the budget each year the shared responsibility of the president and the Congress each year. Next stupid argument...
4. The space program has always been unpopular? In what universe? Do people hate GPS and satellite TV and I missed the memo? For the record, just because there are idiots that attack the space budget does not mean that the space program itself, or NASA, is unpopular, it just means thre are idiots.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

If you've had the plan for that long, it falls under the grandfather clause. I made that assumption because you said it did not qualify for the clause (which would only be true if the policy were enacted after the ACA was passed).

It is only grandfathered if (a) it is part of a collective bargaining agreement aka union contract or every individual that works for the company is covered by that plan or another plan that is also grandfathered. Individuals withing in a company can switch from one grandfathered plan to another within the same company, but new hires can only enroll in a grandfathered plan if they are part of the union. Even then, once the collective bargaining agreement is expired, the plan is no longer grandfathered in, which will probably cause a stink when people find out they loose their union negotiated health care benefits.

Considering that less than 10% of private sector workers are union, and that most small businesses do not offer multiple plans, why don't you give me an estimate of the number of plans that actually manage to fit through the grandfather clause.

False. The language referring to collective bargaining has to do with the expiration date of the plans.

The interim final regulations put out by HHS specify that collective bargaining contracts will grandfather a plan until the expiration of the contract. It also allows a plan to be renegotiated before the contract expiration will continue to be grandfathered. If that is a lie feel free to link to the HHS site and show me where the regulations don't say what I claim, it shouldn't be hard.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

It is only grandfathered if (a) it is part of a collective bargaining agreement aka union contract or every individual that works for the company is covered by that plan or another plan that is also grandfathered. Individuals withing in a company can switch from one grandfathered plan to another within the same company, but new hires can only enroll in a grandfathered plan if they are part of the union. Even then, once the collective bargaining agreement is expired, the plan is no longer grandfathered in, which will probably cause a stink when people find out they loose their union negotiated health care benefits.

Considering that less than 10% of private sector workers are union, and that most small businesses do not offer multiple plans, why don't you give me an estimate of the number of plans that actually manage to fit through the grandfather clause.

False. The language referring to collective bargaining has to do with the expiration date of the plans.

It also has to do with the type of plans that are protected, which are only those plans that were collectively bargained for.

You aren't interpreting it correctly.

Technically, if an individual has a policy through his employer, and the employer keeps the plan, it is still grandfathered, even if it isn't part of a union contract.

 

[Polk]

That's not a technicality, that's the entire point of the discussion.