Now Media Can Tell Us The Truth About ObamaCare Costs

[rdean]

The number one cause of bankruptcy are medical bills. Why are Republicans desperate to keep it that way? It's a curious thing.

 

[Stephanie]

The number one cause of bankruptcy are medical bills. Why are Republicans desperate to keep it that way? It's a curious thing.

You keep repeating this, HOW IS OBAMACARE going to PREVENT THIS ?
And what the hell does Republicans have to do with people going bankrupt..You would rather see our country go bankrupt I suppose?

 

[rdean]

The number one cause of bankruptcy are medical bills. Why are Republicans desperate to keep it that way? It's a curious thing.

You keep repeating this, HOW IS OBAMACARE going to PREVENT THIS ?
And what the hell does Republicans have to do with people going bankrupt..You would rather see our country go bankrupt I suppose?

Why would I want to see the country to bankrupt? I'm not a Republican.

 

[healthmyths]

Rising Costs: How often did the president promise the Democrats' health care reform would bend the spending curve downward? Now the media that've coddled him for years are finally talking about ObamaCare's costs.

The media that endorsed ObamaCare as a cost-control watershed are now beginning to actually report on its effects. Over the weekend, the New York Times noted that "health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration's health care law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers."

Media Finally Acknowledge ObamaCare Pushes The Cost Curve Upward - Investors.com

For some customers--mostly individual plans.

**Your boss / your company can shop around for better rates.

**when the insurance exchanges kick in, rates will become more competitive.

**insurance companies are just gouging you while they still can.

**don't blame Obama, blame greed.

**rates will go down when uninsured individuals are required to buy basic coverage.

**keep in mind, it was the GOP that shit on the Public Option because it was a "trojan horse".


Health Insurance companies are the middle men, they innovate NOTHING, the provide NO health care services or procedures. They are the airline that raises the ticket price when you're already in the air, or the retailer that makes you pay before you come in the store and limits your shopping to only those items they believe you need. Health Insurance companies are a broken and backwards business model and the only way to keep them ethical is to regulate them. Obama made the mistake of inviting them to ACA table and letting them dictate the terms. Keep in mind, health insurance companies don't develop new products and therefore have no R&D expenses, no transport costs, no factory overhead. The market is dominated by several big names, no competition from the little operator. They insure large groups of people (Group Policies) and charge each member all the same even though only a certain percentage get sick. They play the odds to their advantage and will try to minimize coverage anyway they can.

You wrote.."rates will go down when uninsured individuals are required to buy basic coverage."

That might have been true IF the insurance companies didn't have these two COSTs added to the actuarial (how the arrive at rates) process.

A) Pre-Existing conditions no longer can be calculated.. so a very simple example.. Smokers get cancer which cause claims which insurance pays.
So knowing i.e. Pre-existing conditions.. actuaries add cancer treatments into calculations so smokers paid higher premiums.
Since no pre-existing conditions means all are considered smokers.. as a result EVERYONE's rates went up.

B) Then the other reason Mandated 85% must be paid out in benefits under Obamacare..
SO even though studying the 10-Ks of health insurance showed an average already of 80% of premiums were paid out, by forcing another 5% where is the profit?
That is insurance companies average 4.6% net profits. "Profits" are a REQUIREMENT to stay in Business BY STATE laws!
Insurance companies are letting people go to cut costs to make a profit to meet state requirements even though they are raising rates!

What Obamacare totally ignored was the $850 billion a year doctors say caused by fear of lawsuits then send duplicate,specialists claims to insurance/medicare!
Total fact of health care expenses that if this figure was reduced 20% through a 10% tax on the $250 billion a year lawyers make that would decline as the
$850 billion a year defensive medicine out of fear of lawsuits declined.. Annual savings $170 billion that WOULDN"T BE SENT AS INSURANCE CLAIMS!

$170 billion annual savings WOULD REDUCE premiums while covering the truly 8 million uninsured (Obama LIED about 50 million.. 10 million are not citizens, 14 million are covered by Medicaid already and 18 million are people that pay out of pocket under 34 and could afford but don't need to spend for employer insurance!)!

But Obamacare was such stupid illogical huge 13,000 new pages of rules regulations it is the effort to destroy health care following this dictum from ...
the Cloward-Piven Strategy seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse. http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/Articles/theclowardpivenstrategypoe.html

Obamacare is Cloward-Piven Strategy in action !

 

[FJO]

America deserves every crappy thing Obama is delivering.

The majority voted for it, facilitated it, celebrated it. The people who could have stopped it stayed home.

Now we have to take our medicine.

Obama got a second term ONLY because the religious fundamentalists preferred an atheist
to a Mormon and stayed home.

 

[healthmyths]

Reality check:

Health care price growth plummets – 2012 lowest year since 1998

Health care price growth in December, at 1.7% year-over-year, was three-tenths below November’s reading, and the lowest rate since February 1998. The 12-month moving average at 2.0% is the lowest since a fractionally lower 2.0% figure was recorded in December 1998. [...]

December was the 43rd month of economic expansion but price pressures are nowhere to be found. Indeed, lower PPI and CPI readings are likely exerting downward pressure on the health price index rather than the expected opposite whereby health care prices would be stimulating general inflation. This scenario, in conjunction with aggressive measures that providers are taking to become more efficient, argue for continued price stability (or even another leg down!).

Health insurance premiums see smallest increase in 15 years

The cost of providing health care benefits to employees rose by just 4.1% this year, the smallest increase in 15 years, according to a survey by human resources consultant Mercer.

And employers are expecting to see another modest increase of 5% next year, the survey of 2,800 companies found. That's a far cry from the beginning of the decade, when employers reported increases of 10% to nearly 15% a year. Last year, benefit costs rose by 6.1%.

Growth In Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary Continues To Hit Historic Lows


The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023

Medicaid and Medicare. In recent years, health care spending has grown much more slowly both nationally and for federal programs than historical rates would have indicated. (For example, in 2012, federal spending for Medicare and Medicaid was about 5 percent below the amount that CBO had projected in March 2010.) In response to that slowdown, over the past several years, CBO has made a series of downward technical adjustments to its projections of spending for Medicaid and Medicare. From the March 2010 baseline to the current baseline, such technical revisions have lowered estimates of federal spending for the two programs in 2020 by about $200 billion—by $126 billion for Medicare and by $78 billion for Medicaid, or by roughly 15 percent for each program.

Growth of Health Spending Stays Low

January 7, 2013
WASHINGTON — National health spending climbed to $2.7 trillion in 2011, or an average of $8,700 for every person in the country, but as a share of the economy, it remained stable for the third consecutive year, the Obama administration said Monday.

The rate of increase in health spending, 3.9 percent in 2011, was the same as in 2009 and 2010 — the lowest annual rates recorded in the 52 years the government has been collecting such data.

So why the F...K purpose is OBAMACARE???? These figures are BEFORE Obamacare is coming full force... AND WHY insurance companies RATES are climbing NOW is the planning they are doing when full force 2014 Obamacare comes into play THEY HAVE To unlike OBAMA meet a budget!!!

 

[Freewill]

Reality check:

Health care price growth plummets – 2012 lowest year since 1998

Health care price growth in December, at 1.7% year-over-year, was three-tenths below November’s reading, and the lowest rate since February 1998. The 12-month moving average at 2.0% is the lowest since a fractionally lower 2.0% figure was recorded in December 1998. [...]

December was the 43rd month of economic expansion but price pressures are nowhere to be found. Indeed, lower PPI and CPI readings are likely exerting downward pressure on the health price index rather than the expected opposite whereby health care prices would be stimulating general inflation. This scenario, in conjunction with aggressive measures that providers are taking to become more efficient, argue for continued price stability (or even another leg down!).

Health insurance premiums see smallest increase in 15 years

The cost of providing health care benefits to employees rose by just 4.1% this year, the smallest increase in 15 years, according to a survey by human resources consultant Mercer.

And employers are expecting to see another modest increase of 5% next year, the survey of 2,800 companies found. That's a far cry from the beginning of the decade, when employers reported increases of 10% to nearly 15% a year. Last year, benefit costs rose by 6.1%.

Growth In Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary Continues To Hit Historic Lows


The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023

Medicaid and Medicare. In recent years, health care spending has grown much more slowly both nationally and for federal programs than historical rates would have indicated. (For example, in 2012, federal spending for Medicare and Medicaid was about 5 percent below the amount that CBO had projected in March 2010.) In response to that slowdown, over the past several years, CBO has made a series of downward technical adjustments to its projections of spending for Medicaid and Medicare. From the March 2010 baseline to the current baseline, such technical revisions have lowered estimates of federal spending for the two programs in 2020 by about $200 billion—by $126 billion for Medicare and by $78 billion for Medicaid, or by roughly 15 percent for each program.

Growth of Health Spending Stays Low

January 7, 2013
WASHINGTON — National health spending climbed to $2.7 trillion in 2011, or an average of $8,700 for every person in the country, but as a share of the economy, it remained stable for the third consecutive year, the Obama administration said Monday.

The rate of increase in health spending, 3.9 percent in 2011, was the same as in 2009 and 2010 — the lowest annual rates recorded in the 52 years the government has been collecting such data.

What does 2012 have to do with Obamatax? Nothing.

 

[Freewill]

Reality check:

Health care price growth plummets – 2012 lowest year since 1998

Health care price growth in December, at 1.7% year-over-year, was three-tenths below November’s reading, and the lowest rate since February 1998. The 12-month moving average at 2.0% is the lowest since a fractionally lower 2.0% figure was recorded in December 1998. [...]

December was the 43rd month of economic expansion but price pressures are nowhere to be found. Indeed, lower PPI and CPI readings are likely exerting downward pressure on the health price index rather than the expected opposite whereby health care prices would be stimulating general inflation. This scenario, in conjunction with aggressive measures that providers are taking to become more efficient, argue for continued price stability (or even another leg down!).

Health insurance premiums see smallest increase in 15 years


Growth In Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary Continues To Hit Historic Lows


The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023


Growth of Health Spending Stays Low

January 7, 2013
WASHINGTON — National health spending climbed to $2.7 trillion in 2011, or an average of $8,700 for every person in the country, but as a share of the economy, it remained stable for the third consecutive year, the Obama administration said Monday.

The rate of increase in health spending, 3.9 percent in 2011, was the same as in 2009 and 2010 — the lowest annual rates recorded in the 52 years the government has been collecting such data.

So why the F...K purpose is OBAMACARE???? These figures are BEFORE Obamacare is coming full force... AND WHY insurance companies RATES are climbing NOW is the planning they are doing when full force 2014 Obamacare comes into play THEY HAVE To unlike OBAMA meet a budget!!!

Did you notice that the rates actually rose 8700 for every man and woman in the country? Then the facts are distorted to say that 8700 ain't that much. What a load.

 

[healthmyths]

The number one cause of bankruptcy are medical bills. Why are Republicans desperate to keep it that way? It's a curious thing.

AND the biggest cause of MEDICAL BILLS is the $850 Billion a year in duplicate tests, specialists ALL out of fear of lawsuits!

And don't say medical liability insurance rates as that is ignorance !

FACT:
In a recent Gallup survey, physicians attributed 34 percent of overall healthcare costs to defensive medicine and 21 percent of their practice to be defensive in nature. Specifically, they estimated that 35 percent of diagnostic tests, 29 percent of lab tests, 19 percent of hospitalizations, 14 percent of prescriptions, and 8 percent of surgeries were performed to avoid lawsuits.

Liability reform has been estimated to result in anywhere from a 5 percent to a 34 percent reduction in medical expenditures by reducing defensive medicine practices, with estimates of savings from $54 billion to $650 billion.

So THAT is what causes the bankruptcies NOT the insurance companies! Not the providers BUT pure fear they might be wrong.
So are you happy knowing 34% of all health expenses are NOT needed but simple as "INSURANCE" against be sued???

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

Well I for one will really be sad to see the pre-existing illness exclusion clause go the way of the dinosaur. That's one reason the insurance rates are going up.

I don't think a corporation, whose only goal is to create a profit, profit from a given total exposure/ risk situation such as healthcare anyway.

If you were not born in a hospital, have never needed medical care for anything and now plan on dying at home without any medical attention, please raise your hand....or STFU.

 

[JoeB131]

For some customers--mostly individual plans.

**Your boss / your company can shop around for better rates.

**when the insurance exchanges kick in, rates will become more competitive.

**insurance companies are just gouging you while they still can.

**don't blame Obama, blame greed.

**rates will go down when uninsured individuals are required to buy basic coverage.

**keep in mind, it was the GOP that shit on the Public Option because it was a "trojan horse".


Health Insurance companies are the middle men, they innovate NOTHING, the provide NO health care services or procedures. They are the airline that raises the ticket price when you're already in the air, or the retailer that makes you pay before you come in the store and limits your shopping to only those items they believe you need. Health Insurance companies are a broken and backwards business model and the only way to keep them ethical is to regulate them. Obama made the mistake of inviting them to ACA table and letting them dictate the terms. Keep in mind, health insurance companies don't develop new products and therefore have no R&D expenses, no transport costs, no factory overhead. The market is dominated by several big names, no competition from the little operator. They insure large groups of people (Group Policies) and charge each member all the same even though only a certain percentage get sick. They play the odds to their advantage and will try to minimize coverage anyway they can.

Spoken like a true idiot socialist.

Competition does more to drive down prices, improve quality, and create the highest level of ethical behavior than a billion regulations ever could. But you've never been one to let the facts get in your way, uh hazl?

Poodle, you can't scream "Socialism" or "Communism" whenever you can't answer a point.

If competition was the panacea you said it was, how come until the ACA, medical inflation was three times the rate of regular inflation- all the way back to the 1990's - and the number of uninsured INCREASED instead of decreasing?

Here's the reality. A true "Free Market" health care system can never exist. Most of the world has figured this out, which is why they have some form of universal coverage.

What we have is 100 million in government programs because the private sector finds them unprofitable to insure. We have 150 million in some kind of private program, which only work because the government subsidizes them. And we have another 50 million without insurance at all, until the ACA came along.

Now, you might think a system where health care is a luxury item only the rich can have is a good thing, but the rest of us kind of don't, and voted accordingly.

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

My late H died from cancer 4 years ago. There was period of time in 2003-2004 when he did not have health insurance. If we had universal health care in place he would have been diagnosed with a problem that would have cost $30,000+/- to fix.

As a result of our wonderful health care system and insurance companies thieves, he was not diagnosed until 2005. And by 2009 his problem cost Empire Blue almost $1,200,000. That's one million two hundred thousand for the zero-impaired.. And he died anyway.

Who do you think pays for that? You do. No brainer question: Which scenario would you rather get stuck with? Do the math. DUH.

 

[JoeB131]

America deserves every crappy thing Obama is delivering.

The majority voted for it, facilitated it, celebrated it. The people who could have stopped it stayed home.

Now we have to take our medicine.

Obama got a second term ONLY because the religious fundamentalists preferred an atheist
to a Mormon and stayed home.

Your own damned fault for nominating a Mormon, then.

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

For some customers--mostly individual plans.

**Your boss / your company can shop around for better rates.

**when the insurance exchanges kick in, rates will become more competitive.

**insurance companies are just gouging you while they still can.

**don't blame Obama, blame greed.

**rates will go down when uninsured individuals are required to buy basic coverage.

**keep in mind, it was the GOP that shit on the Public Option because it was a "trojan horse".


Health Insurance companies are the middle men, they innovate NOTHING, the provide NO health care services or procedures. They are the airline that raises the ticket price when you're already in the air, or the retailer that makes you pay before you come in the store and limits your shopping to only those items they believe you need. Health Insurance companies are a broken and backwards business model and the only way to keep them ethical is to regulate them. Obama made the mistake of inviting them to ACA table and letting them dictate the terms. Keep in mind, health insurance companies don't develop new products and therefore have no R&D expenses, no transport costs, no factory overhead. The market is dominated by several big names, no competition from the little operator. They insure large groups of people (Group Policies) and charge each member all the same even though only a certain percentage get sick. They play the odds to their advantage and will try to minimize coverage anyway they can.

Spoken like a true idiot socialist.

Competition does more to drive down prices, improve quality, and create the highest level of ethical behavior than a billion regulations ever could. But you've never been one to let the facts get in your way, uh hazl?

Poodle, you can't scream "Socialism" or "Communism" whenever you can't answer a point.

If competition was the panacea you said it was, how come until the ACA, medical inflation was three times the rate of regular inflation- all the way back to the 1990's - and the number of uninsured INCREASED instead of decreasing?

Here's the reality. A true "Free Market" health care system can never exist. Most of the world has figured this out, which is why they have some form of universal coverage.

What we have is 100 million in government programs because the private sector finds them unprofitable to insure. We have 150 million in some kind of private program, which only work because the government subsidizes them. And we have another 50 million without insurance at all, until the ACA came along.

Now, you might think a system where health care is a luxury item only the rich can have is a good thing, but the rest of us kind of don't, and voted accordingly.

Yup.

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

America deserves every crappy thing Obama is delivering.

The majority voted for it, facilitated it, celebrated it. The people who could have stopped it stayed home.

Now we have to take our medicine.

Obama got a second term ONLY because the religious fundamentalists preferred an atheist
to a Mormon and stayed home.

Hahahahahaaaa....Yeah, that's what happened all right. They stayed home because Karl Rove, Sean Hannity, Dick Morris and Glenn Beck told them Romney was going to win in a landslide. Remember? If you can't, just go to YouTube. Otherwise send me a link to the data or video that verifies your claim.

 

[NoTeaPartyPleez]

America deserves every crappy thing Obama is delivering.

The majority voted for it, facilitated it, celebrated it. The people who could have stopped it stayed home.

Now we have to take our medicine.

Obama got a second term ONLY because the religious fundamentalists preferred an atheist
to a Mormon and stayed home.

Your own damned fault for nominating a Mormon, then.

They would prefer a "Kenyan Muslim Communist" over an American Mormon....right....It's statements like this that illustrate why Obama won.

 

[JoeB131]

Obama got a second term ONLY because the religious fundamentalists preferred an atheist
to a Mormon and stayed home.

Your own damned fault for nominating a Mormon, then.

They would prefer a "Kenyan Muslim Communist" over an American Mormon....right....It's statements like this that illustrate why Obama won.

The Evangelicals bit the bullet and smiled nicely and tried to pretend they didn't say all those mean things about Mormonism that probably were true...

There just aren't enough of them.

Here's the biggest problem. There are some valid criticisms to be made of the ACA. It's too generous to the insurance companies, it's going to cost a lot to implement in the short run, and without the Public Option, there's no stick to threaten the insurance companies to play fair.

Unfortunately, Romney was not the guy to make those arguments, since he essentially championed the same kind of half-private/half public program in Massachusetts. The kind that Republicans and conservatives just loved until Obama adopted it.

 

[Seawytch]

Blame the culprits, the insurance companies.

I'd say that the Insurance Companies used their money well when they invested in Tea Party groups.

 

[Greenbeard]

So why the F...K purpose is OBAMACARE???? These figures are BEFORE Obamacare is coming full force...

What does 2012 have to do with Obamatax? Nothing.

Obviously much has already been going on, either in actual launch or in preparation on the provider side (What's Changing and When)--most notably the work of the CMS Innovation Center, the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program, and the Shared Savings Program. You could probably add the readmissions reduction program for hospitals to that list, as well (note that slower price growth and slower spending growth at hospitals is helping to anchor the slowing growth trends in the health sector).

I said it back in 2010: we were already seeing delivery system reorganization to hold down costs then. And, as I pointed out a few months ago, depending on how you count up to a tenth of the population is now in an accountable care arrangement like those envisioned in the ACA to be a major component of future cost containment and quality improvement: How many patients in ACOs?

Change is happening.

Did you notice that the rates actually rose 8700 for every man and woman in the country? Then the facts are distorted to say that 8700 ain't that much. What a load.

No genius, per capita spending rose $263. It's at $8,680 in the latest national expenditures data available, up from $8,417 the prior year.

 

[healthmyths]

Well I for one will really be sad to see the pre-existing illness exclusion clause go the way of the dinosaur. That's one reason the insurance rates are going up.

I don't think a corporation, whose only goal is to create a profit, profit from a given total exposure/ risk situation such as healthcare anyway.

If you were not born in a hospital, have never needed medical care for anything and now plan on dying at home without any medical attention, please raise your hand....or STFU.

But obviously YOU HAVE no idea of what STATE insurance regulations require! PROFIT!
You can't be allowed to sell insurance if you don't have reserves. Where do reserves come from Profits!

Now next question. How much is TOO much profit???
2% 4%???

Here is a list of "for profit" industries and their net profits....
Tell me which is too much profit??
Fortune 500 2009: Top Performers - Most Profitable Industries: Return on Revenues

Top industries: Most profitable 2008 Profits as % of Revenues

1. 1 Network and Other Communications Equipment 20.4%
2. 2 Internet Services and Retailing 19.4
3. 3 Pharmaceuticals 19.3
4. 4 Medical Products and Equipment 16.3
5. 5 Railroads 12.6

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

22 Insurance: Life, Health (stock) 4.6%

Is the evil rotten profits that help fund 401Ks, pensions too much at 20.4%??? or your ISP making 19.4%?
How about on the list at # 22 insurance.. 4.6%

So with Obamacare forcing insurance companies to ABSORB "pre-existing conditions" KNOWING there will be smokers that cause cancer claims among them .."FOR AN EXAMPLE" OK?? The companies don't KNOW who is a smoker/non-smoker.. so they cover assume ALL are smokers!
Then with Obamacare FORCING 85% of premiums be paid out in claims... when companies already were paying an average of 80% that 5% increase in paying out claims?? Eats up the above profit of 4.6%!
What's the solution??
A) Lower operating costs by letting people go!
Cigna To Lay Off 1,300 Workers,
Cigna had about 30,000 workers companywide in 2009 and has about 35,000 today, including about 4,000 in Connecticut. A 4 percent reduction would still leave 33,600, which is more than the 30,000 the company had three years ago.
The layoffs were mentioned as a “realignment and efficiency plan,” a foot note in the third-quarter earnings report that came out Thursday morning.

B) Raise the rates..

Somehow to meet insurance regulations to have reserves, companies must have a profit and to have a profit with Obamacare raising liability ratio to 85%
WHAT choice do the companies have except cut costs, raise premiums!