Obamacare continues to kill jobs across the country. Thanks, liberals.

[Greenbeard]

It's awful law..doesn't do what the American people wanted it to do...namely lower health care costs...never even touched on tort reform as a payback to the trial lawyers who ponied up major bucks to get Democrats elected in 2008...

So remind me again how it is that ObamaCare is supposed to have lowered my health care costs?

Man, I feel like I just posted about this in a thread. Oh yeah, it was this one.

Obamacare doesn't take just one approach to cost containment. It accepts that incentives are broken at pretty much every level of the health care system and proceeds from there.

If your pet issue is overutilization/poor shopping for health services by consumers and patients, you'll be pleased to know the law is a boon for consumer directed high deductible plan-HSA pairs. It reduces the tax incentive for employees and employers to have overly generous benefit designs. It adds new transparency requirements for hospitals to make public a list of their charges for items and services they provide.

If you think costs increases can be traced to the insurance side, the ACA places limitations on the portion of premium revenue that can be spent on non-medical things (like the executive compensation liberals complain about). It brings new insurers into markets that have been devoid of competition, in part by seeding the creation of new homegrown (and consumer-operated) plans and in part by allowing existing insurers to sell across state lines in new markets.

It fixes deficiencies in existing insurance markets to ensure that consumers have the information and the structure needed to make meaningful choices and send clear price signals--shopping in the new marketplaces is going to make it very easy to see what you're getting with a new plan, what the prices are (and even your own likely expenses under a given plan), how the choices stack up in terms of quality, etc. The ACA also helps states to develop new insurance premium oversight mechanisms that, when used aggressively, have shown potential in being able to help hold down rising costs.

If you think costs are being driven on the provider side, the ACA is making a huge push to address the problems in organization and care coordination, etc that drive costs on the provider side. It would take way too long to go through all of what it's doing on that front but a major strategy in the ACA is to use Medicare reform to drive change by (1) shifting the way Medicare pays for services away from encouraging high-volume, low (or mediocre) value service provision, and (2) promoting and assisting health care providers in delivering better care more efficiently and less expensively, while holding them accountable for quality outcomes. You can see some of what's coming down the pike in results (i.e. slower cost growth, higher quality scores) from this private sector pilot in Massachusetts that incorporates some of these principles: http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...-reform-model-lowers-costs-improves-care.html.

More importantly, there are some early indicators that providers have already begun to reorganize care delivery in response to the ongoing and coming reforms, accounting for some of Medicare's current record-low cost growth--and offering some promise that we might be entering a new era of cost containment.Obamacare tackles the biggest cost drivers, not just in Medicare but in the entire health system: the inflationary payment mechanisms and flawed delivery systems that have plagued the health system for decades.

If tort reform is your issue, the ACA offered federal money and assistance to help states find innovative ways to reform their own tort laws (the GOP Congress has refused to fund that provision of the law). Those who push for blunt force approaches to tort reform, like national caps on damages, miss the fact that many, many states have already tried caps on damages and the like. If there's money to be saved through tort reform, we're going to have to get smarter about how we do it by trying new approaches (e.g. health courts). That's why we need states to start experimenting with new strategies.

Those who say the law does nothing to rein in costs are just being silly: it goes after cost drivers at every level of the system. There's more to be done in the future but it's a hell of a start.

 

[kiwiman127]

I noticed you declined to answer my question to you about insurance premiums going up substantially before ObamaCare locked in. So there was only a small increase this year but the big bump came prior to that. So remind me again how it is that ObamaCare is supposed to have lowered my health care costs?

Actually, if you look at Bripat's chart and also the one I posted, you'll see a large jump in premiums, but long before Obamacare was even an idea. Healthcare insurance has been climbing in cost at ridiculous levels for the last couple of decades.
I just don't get why people don't realize exactly how out of control healthcare costs have risen and for how long. Healthcare costs are killing our economy but Washington is full of money whores who don't do anything to stop the bleeding because the healthcare industry owns Washington.
This partisan finger pointing is pure ignorance.

 

[francoHFW]

MassCare and every other modern country prove these fears are imaginary, but thanks to Pubs for the depression, the mindless obstruction for 3 1/2 years, and the nonstop fear mongering, the actual reasons for our economic problems...2014 will prove it beyond all doubt.

 

[bripat9643]

If you're looking at employee-only coverage (which you now seem to be doing), the rate of increase is even smaller. Across group plans, the employee-only premium this year is $5,615 ($951 for the employee's contribution, $4,664 for the employer's contribution). That's Exhibit B on page 2 of KFF's survey report from this year.

Compare to last year's numbers: (5615 - 5429) / 5429 = 3.4% increase.

Last year's increase was 7.5%. I just did the math for you. The math you displayed above is wrong. You don't even know how to calculate a percentage. $5615 is this year's premium cost. You don't use this year's premium cost to calculate last year's increase. This year isn't even over, so I don't know where you can even get a valid figure for this year's average premium cost.

 

[Greenbeard]

Last year's increase was 7.5%. I just did the math for you. The math you displayed above is wrong. You don't even know how to calculate a percentage. $5615 is this year's premium cost. You don't use this year's premium cost to calculate last year's increase. This year isn't even over, so I don't know where you can even get a valid figure for this year's average premium cost.

Relax, little man, you did us a favor. You exposed a glaring inaccuracy: I had said the average premium increase this year was 4% but it turns out that for employee-only coverage it was only 3% this year. That's good sleuthing!

If you don't know what your premiums were this year, ask your parents.

 

[bripat9643]

Last year's increase was 7.5%. I just did the math for you. The math you displayed above is wrong. You don't even know how to calculate a percentage. $5615 is this year's premium cost. You don't use this year's premium cost to calculate last year's increase. This year isn't even over, so I don't know where you can even get a valid figure for this year's average premium cost.

Relax, little man, you did us a favor. You exposed a glaring inaccuracy: I had said the average premium increase this year was 4% but it turns out that for employee-only coverage it was only 3% this year. That's good sleuthing!

If you don't know what your premiums were this year, ask your parents.

As I already pointed out, this year isn't over yet, so your claims are obvious bullshit.

 

[Greenbeard]

As I already pointed out, this year isn't over yet, so your claims are obvious bullshit.

Ask Mom and Dad how open enrollment works. Odds are, they already know what next year's premiums are going to be.

 

[bripat9643]

As I already pointed out, this year isn't over yet, so your claims are obvious bullshit.

Ask Mom and Dad how open enrollment works. Odds are, they already know what next year's premiums are going to be.

I just did open enrollment, dipstick. That doesn't mean I know what the average premium cost was for the entire country. Go back to school and learn how an average works.

 

[Oldstyle]

It's awful law..doesn't do what the American people wanted it to do...namely lower health care costs...never even touched on tort reform as a payback to the trial lawyers who ponied up major bucks to get Democrats elected in 2008...

So remind me again how it is that ObamaCare is supposed to have lowered my health care costs?

Man, I feel like I just posted about this in a thread. Oh yeah, it was this one.

Obamacare doesn't take just one approach to cost containment. It accepts that incentives are broken at pretty much every level of the health care system and proceeds from there.

If your pet issue is overutilization/poor shopping for health services by consumers and patients, you'll be pleased to know the law is a boon for consumer directed high deductible plan-HSA pairs. It reduces the tax incentive for employees and employers to have overly generous benefit designs. It adds new transparency requirements for hospitals to make public a list of their charges for items and services they provide.

If you think costs increases can be traced to the insurance side, the ACA places limitations on the portion of premium revenue that can be spent on non-medical things (like the executive compensation liberals complain about). It brings new insurers into markets that have been devoid of competition, in part by seeding the creation of new homegrown (and consumer-operated) plans and in part by allowing existing insurers to sell across state lines in new markets.

It fixes deficiencies in existing insurance markets to ensure that consumers have the information and the structure needed to make meaningful choices and send clear price signals--shopping in the new marketplaces is going to make it very easy to see what you're getting with a new plan, what the prices are (and even your own likely expenses under a given plan), how the choices stack up in terms of quality, etc. The ACA also helps states to develop new insurance premium oversight mechanisms that, when used aggressively, have shown potential in being able to help hold down rising costs.

If you think costs are being driven on the provider side, the ACA is making a huge push to address the problems in organization and care coordination, etc that drive costs on the provider side. It would take way too long to go through all of what it's doing on that front but a major strategy in the ACA is to use Medicare reform to drive change by (1) shifting the way Medicare pays for services away from encouraging high-volume, low (or mediocre) value service provision, and (2) promoting and assisting health care providers in delivering better care more efficiently and less expensively, while holding them accountable for quality outcomes. You can see some of what's coming down the pike in results (i.e. slower cost growth, higher quality scores) from this private sector pilot in Massachusetts that incorporates some of these principles: http://www.usmessageboard.com/healt...-reform-model-lowers-costs-improves-care.html.

More importantly, there are some early indicators that providers have already begun to reorganize care delivery in response to the ongoing and coming reforms, accounting for some of Medicare's current record-low cost growth--and offering some promise that we might be entering a new era of cost containment.Obamacare tackles the biggest cost drivers, not just in Medicare but in the entire health system: the inflationary payment mechanisms and flawed delivery systems that have plagued the health system for decades.

If tort reform is your issue, the ACA offered federal money and assistance to help states find innovative ways to reform their own tort laws (the GOP Congress has refused to fund that provision of the law). Those who push for blunt force approaches to tort reform, like national caps on damages, miss the fact that many, many states have already tried caps on damages and the like. If there's money to be saved through tort reform, we're going to have to get smarter about how we do it by trying new approaches (e.g. health courts). That's why we need states to start experimenting with new strategies.

Those who say the law does nothing to rein in costs are just being silly: it goes after cost drivers at every level of the system. There's more to be done in the future but it's a hell of a start.

How does kicking tort reform back to the States constitute ObamaCare addressing tort reform? The truth is...the trial lawyers bought a pass on tort reform because they contributed millions to Democratic politicians. You know it and I know it, Greenie. It's about as blatant an example of a political pay off in return for favors as you could find. Nothing illegal but let's admit that it took place, shall we?

 

[Greenbeard]

How does kicking tort reform back to the States constitute ObamaCare addressing tort reform?

There's nothing wrong with providing the states the resources and support to explore new approaches to tort law. To repeat what I just said: Those who push for blunt force approaches to tort reform, like national caps on damages, miss the fact that many, many states have already tried caps on damages and the like. If there's money to be saved through tort reform, we're going to have to get smarter about how we do it by trying new approaches (e.g. health courts). That's why we need states to start experimenting with new strategies.

If you try and nationalize tort law, you're going to get pushback from GOP politicians who revere their interpretation of the Tenth Amendment. Here's Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli, famous for his legal attacks on the individual mandate, speaking out against a proposed federal tort reform law and vowing to "file suit against it just as fast as I filed suit when the federal health-care bill was signed into law in March 2010 (15 minutes later)":

The five senators in question obviously support tort reform, and they are willing to smother states to impose their policy preference. It is frustrating how “broadly” some senators interpret the powers of the federal government when they are pursuing a favored policy, and how “limited” those same powers are seen to be when it is the other guy’s proposal violating the Constitution.

Senate Bill 197 takes an approach that implies “Washington knows best” while trampling states’ authority and the 10th Amendment. The legislation is breathtakingly broad in its assumptions about federal power, particularly the same power to regulate commerce that lies at the heart of all the lawsuits (including Virginia’s) against the individual mandate of the 2010 federal health-care law. I have little doubt that the senators who brought us S. 197 oppose the use of the commerce clause to compel individuals to buy health insurance. Yet they have no qualms about dictating to state court judges how they are to conduct trials in state lawsuits. How does this sort of constitutional disconnect happen?

An example of one policy question the legislation would take from states is whether to cap medical malpractice awards. Virginia is among those states that utilize caps; others do not. But it is the right of the residents of each state to decide which system works best for them, rather than having a one-size-fits-all plan imposed unconstitutionally by the federal government.

Or see this intraparty squabbling last year, as some in the GOP, just after taking back the House, pushed for the nationalization of tort law:

At a Judiciary Committee markup, Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) accused Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) of proposing legislation that would violate the Constitution.

The panel was considering legislation sponsored by Gingrey, who does not sit on the committee and was not present, that would impose a $250,000 cap on non-economic medical malpractice damages. Poe, a former felony court judge and a member of the House Tea Party Caucus, said that violates the Constitution.

He also warned he'd vote against the measure if it imposes caps on states that don't want them.

"I got problems with that," Poe said. "I think it's a violation of the Tenth Amendment." [...]

[Lamar] Smith, who has made tort reform one of his top five priorities, defended the law, saying tort reform falls under the purview of the Constitution's Commerce Clause.

"If Alabama and New York want to be a haven for malpractice suits, it's great for Texas," said Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas). "I'm reticent to allow Congress to impose our will on the states."

The truth is...the trial lawyers bought a pass on tort reform because they contributed millions to Democratic politicians.

The tort reform sections of the law were pulled from Republican legislation (even Paul Ryan's reform legislation relied on this approach to tort reform). Are they owned by the trial lawyers, too?

 

[Oldstyle]

Simple question for you, Greenie...did the trial lawyers NOT spend millions to elect Democratic candidates...including Barack Obama? If they DID...then what did they get in return?

You know as well as I do that the answer to that is a total exclusion from even discussing tort reform in the Obama health care reform bill.

You know it happened...why not simply admit it?

 

[gallantwarrior]

If the people we elected don't come up with any better ideas we'll end up with single payer in the next 15 years.

You keep bringing up the single-payer idea. What do you like about it that makes it so attractive to you?

 

[Oldstyle]

Coming up with excuses for why tort reform wasn't included in the health care reform bill...even while Barack Obama promised to explore each and every method to lower costs simply shows just how far you're willing to go to cover for Barry.

The truth is...he took their money and he delivered on a promise of no tort reform. It is what it is...

 

[jillian]

If the people we elected don't come up with any better ideas we'll end up with single payer in the next 15 years.

is that terrible?

 

[Greenbeard]

You know as well as I do that the answer to that is a total exclusion from even discussing tort reform in the Obama health care reform bill.

Mike Enzi's and Paul Ryan's tort reform provisions were included in the law. How is that "exclusion from discussion"?

 

[Oldstyle]

You know as well as I do that the answer to that is a total exclusion from even discussing tort reform in the Obama health care reform bill.

Mike Enzi's and Paul Ryan's tort reform provisions were included in the law. How is that "exclusion from discussion"?

What tort reform provisions are you speaking of?

 

[Greenbeard]

You know as well as I do that the answer to that is a total exclusion from even discussing tort reform in the Obama health care reform bill.

Mike Enzi's and Paul Ryan's tort reform provisions were included in the law. How is that "exclusion from discussion"?

What tort reform provisions are you speaking of?

The ones that are now federal law: 42 USC § 280g

Borrowed verbatim from Mike Enzi's (the ranking GOP member of the Senate's health committee) Ten Steps to Transform Health Care in America Act and later adapted for use in Paul Ryan's Patient's Choice Act before ending up in the Affordable Care Act.

 

[Murf76]

If the people we elected don't come up with any better ideas we'll end up with single payer in the next 15 years.

Pretty sure you're right.

I can tell you that I've got several business owner clients who have visited our CPA's, trying to find a way to stay above water when this sucker kicks in. I can also report that not one of them is planning any kind of expansion in any way in response to it, and that virtually all of them are planning cutbacks in one form or another, primarily in hours to full timers.

This isn't about greed, it's about survival.

I never thought I'd say this, but single payer would be better than what's about to happen.

.

The goal has been single payer all along. Everything about Obamacare was designed to funnel down into the "public option". When it was removed, the funnel drops people out into chaos. Democrats are hoping that the public outcry will result in them getting their way, so that bureaucrats here in the U.S. can likewise make decisions to withhold hydration and nourishment from terminally ill infants and old people just like Britain's NHS.

When you think about it, all you need for socialized medicine is the individual mandate and a big-ass database of every citizen's medical records. Both of which have been achieved and neither of which are lawful by any honest interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Lousy bastards. And they wonder why we think they're tyrants.

 

[GoneBezerk]

oh no....according to liberals Obamacare getting people to lose their company healthcare or lose their job is good for the economy. Obamination isn't trying to harm the USA by costing people their job and healthcare......