A million could lose insurance in September

[chanel]

Politico notes that as many as a million low-income workers currently covered under “mini-med” health plans will find themselves with no coverage at all, thanks to a ban on hard-cap plans offered at low cost:

The law imposes the penalties for mini-med plans in three months, but the exchanges won’t start until 2014. That means more than three years of having no insurance at all for low-income workers who previously had it, even if Obama and Pelosi sniffed at the worth of the plans.

Hot Air ObamaCare could wipe out health insurance for 1 million low-income workers

Unintended consequences or the deliberate screwing of America?

 

[WillowTree]

The latter.

 

[manifold]

A million could lose insurance in September

When did you start caring about uninsured Americans?

 

[Quantum Windbag]

A million could lose insurance in September

When did you start caring about uninsured Americans?

This is about insured Americans who were promised that they would not loose their insurance under Obamacare.

Guess what? He lied.

 

[xsited1]

...

Hot Air ObamaCare could wipe out health insurance for 1 million low-income workers

...

Obama hates low-income workers. (They don't pay enough in taxes. )

 

[chanel]

I care mani. I care about people who work and try to do the right thing. I happen to know people who have "catastrophic policies". They are willing to pay out of pocket if they get ick or break an arm. But they won't lose their house if they have a heart attack. Now they can.

Where's the left screaming about the dying babies? Don't they care?

 

[Luissa]

I care mani. I care about people who work and try to do the right thing. I happen to know people who have "catastrophic policies". They are willing to pay out of pocket if they get ick or break an arm. But they won't lose their house if they have a heart attack. Now they can.

Where's the left screaming about the dying babies? Don't they care?

So you don't have a problem with Obama care?
Because that is who would be covered.

 

[chanel]

I have huge problems with Obamacare. It will do nothing to decrease premiums which is what America wanted. But that entire issue is moot. Its law. What about the million who will be uninsured for the next three years? What about the dying babies?

 

[Queecho Feecho]

Politico notes that as many as a million low-income workers currently covered under “mini-med” health plans will find themselves with no coverage at all, thanks to a ban on hard-cap plans offered at low cost:

The law imposes the penalties for mini-med plans in three months, but the exchanges won’t start until 2014. That means more than three years of having no insurance at all for low-income workers who previously had it, even if Obama and Pelosi sniffed at the worth of the plans.

Unintended consequences or the deliberate screwing of America?

If you don't mind, would you be able to point me to the Section in the law that specifically bans "mini-med" health plans? I have scanned it but can't find it.

 

[Gatekeeper]

What's really upsetting is the fact our premiums have shot up without mercy and co-pays, the majority of which, used to be $10 each, went to $25 & $50 each for many.

For two people we pay $1024/mo, $12,288/year for a health care plan that still demands another $2000-$3000 in co-pays throughout the year using a FLEX plan. And now, in 2011, this so called Health Care reform is going to LOWER the amount of FLEXPAY, pretax monies, for helping cover these additional costs, meaning another increase! WTF, and now we are supposed to afford to buy health care for others, hell, it's almost out of the reach for many of us now!

So far this health care reform has cost us and millions of others unmerciful increases in our monthly premiums etc. There are other rumors which peaked my attention to this thread which makes my stomach turn concerning our plan, but will wait until we hear more in a month or so.

Now our local Walgreens will NOT be taking Medicare part "D" from CVS Caremark, who we have, as of Jan. 1, 2011. This kind of 'fine tuning' by the insurance companies etc, is only the beginning.

The "Fun" is just beginning with Obamacare, the Obama Health Care Hammer is falling, when it finally reaches the point of contact, then all those who supported this plan that was put together almost overnight like a schoolkid who delayed their assignment until the last minute, then put together a lot of 'Mish Mosh' jumbled with confusing legal paragraphs of rules and regs that can be interpreted many ways resulting in the subscribers being the big losers and you know who as the big winners.

 

[manifold]

I care mani. I care about people who work and try to do the right thing. I happen to know people who have "catastrophic policies". They are willing to pay out of pocket if they get ick or break an arm. But they won't lose their house if they have a heart attack. Now they can.

Where's the left screaming about the dying babies? Don't they care?

I don't really care whether you care or not, I just got the impression from many of your comments about healthcare reform that you didn't.

My bad.

 

[saveliberty]

The plan which was too important to fail, will. It will fail for the very reasons I and many others here warned about repeatedly.

The plan as suppose to:

1. Lower costs. Not happening.
2. Insure more people. Hurting 1,000,000 in just one section of the bill.
3. Create a quality system. Instead we will get rationing.

 

[Gatekeeper]

Does anyone know what has happen to the United States of America? (rhetorical question)

Maybe I should dedicate a thread to this question, something is totally F'd and it's getting worse by the day.

 

[chanel]

Politico notes that as many as a million low-income workers currently covered under “mini-med” health plans will find themselves with no coverage at all, thanks to a ban on hard-cap plans offered at low cost:

The law imposes the penalties for mini-med plans in three months, but the exchanges won’t start until 2014. That means more than three years of having no insurance at all for low-income workers who previously had it, even if Obama and Pelosi sniffed at the worth of the plans.

Unintended consequences or the deliberate screwing of America?

If you don't mind, would you be able to point me to the Section in the law that specifically bans "mini-med" health plans? I have scanned it but can't find it.

Health law could ban low-cost plans - Jennifer Haberkorn - POLITICO.com

This is the story from Politico. It doesn't state the exact provision, but I don't think the story is B.S.

A cadre of employers and trade associations, including 7-Eleven, Lowe’s, the National Restaurant Association, the National Retail Federation and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have asked the administration to allow the plans — at least through 2014, when the insurance exchanges are set up and tax credits become available for low-wage workers.

These companies are requesting a waiver, but it's supposed to start in Sept. They don't have much time.

 

[Greenbeard]

The plan as suppose to:

1. Lower costs. Not happening.
2. Insure more people. Hurting 1,000,000 in just one section of the bill.
3. Create a quality system. Instead we will get rationing.

The cost control aspect of the law is a long-term process based mostly on testing numerous delivery system reforms and, after demonstrating their cost control potential, implementing them on a wider scale. That's going to take time.

Jonathan Gruber had a good piece on the NEJM website not too long ago that addressed some of this: "The Cost Implications of Health Care Reform" (I'd link but apparently my post count isn't high enough).

Yet the real question concerns how far the ACA will go in slowing cost growth. There is great uncertainty, mostly because there is such uncertainty in general about how to control the rate of growth in health care costs. There is no shortage of good ideas for ways of doing so, ranging from reducing consumer demand for health care services, to reducing payments to health care providers, to reorganizing the payment for and delivery of care, to promoting cost-effectiveness standards in care delivery, to reducing pressure from the threat of medical malpractice claims. There is, however, a shortage of evidence regarding which approaches will actually work — and therefore no consensus on which path is best to follow.

Given this uncertainty, it is best to cautiously pursue many different approaches toward cost control and study them to see which ones work best. That is exactly the approach taken in the ACA, which includes provisions to reduce consumer demand through the Cadillac tax, to reduce provider payments by appointing a depoliticized board to make up-or-down recommendations to Congress on changes to Medicare’s provider payments, to run dozens of pilots to test various approaches to revamping provider-payment incentives and organizational structure, to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in new comparative-effectiveness research, and to launch pilot programs to assess the impact of various reorganizations of the medical malpractice process. None of these is guaranteed to work, but together they represent a significant step toward fundamental cost control.​

In the same vein, Peter Orszag and Ezekial Emmanuel had a piece in the NEJM this week ("Health Care Reform and Cost Control") walking through some of those reforms in a bit more detail.

As for coverage, I don't think even the most vocal critics have disputed that this law is going to result in coverage for millions of people who don't currently have it.

And quality is intimately related with the delivery system reforms I just mentioned. It involves paying for quality, fostering the use of EHRs, identifying the most effective treatments, coordinating care, re-aligning incentives, and so on. Those are the things that have the potential to make a massively inefficient system work better--not only will that improve quality, it will (one hopes) in the long-run lower costs.

 

[saveliberty]

The plan as suppose to:

1. Lower costs. Not happening.
2. Insure more people. Hurting 1,000,000 in just one section of the bill.
3. Create a quality system. Instead we will get rationing.

The cost control aspect of the law is a long-term process based mostly on testing numerous delivery system reforms and, after demonstrating their cost control potential, implementing them on a wider scale. That's going to take time.

Jonathan Gruber had a good piece on the NEJM website not too long ago that addressed some of this: "The Cost Implications of Health Care Reform" (I'd link but apparently my post count isn't high enough).

Yet the real question concerns how far the ACA will go in slowing cost growth. There is great uncertainty, mostly because there is such uncertainty in general about how to control the rate of growth in health care costs. There is no shortage of good ideas for ways of doing so, ranging from reducing consumer demand for health care services, to reducing payments to health care providers, to reorganizing the payment for and delivery of care, to promoting cost-effectiveness standards in care delivery, to reducing pressure from the threat of medical malpractice claims. There is, however, a shortage of evidence regarding which approaches will actually work — and therefore no consensus on which path is best to follow.

Given this uncertainty, it is best to cautiously pursue many different approaches toward cost control and study them to see which ones work best. That is exactly the approach taken in the ACA, which includes provisions to reduce consumer demand through the Cadillac tax, to reduce provider payments by appointing a depoliticized board to make up-or-down recommendations to Congress on changes to Medicare’s provider payments, to run dozens of pilots to test various approaches to revamping provider-payment incentives and organizational structure, to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in new comparative-effectiveness research, and to launch pilot programs to assess the impact of various reorganizations of the medical malpractice process. None of these is guaranteed to work, but together they represent a significant step toward fundamental cost control.​

In the same vein, Peter Orszag and Ezekial Emmanuel had a piece in the NEJM this week ("Health Care Reform and Cost Control") walking through some of those reforms in a bit more detail.

As for coverage, I don't think even the most vocal critics have disputed that this law is going to result in coverage for millions of people who don't currently have it.

And quality is intimately related with the delivery system reforms I just mentioned. It involves paying for quality, fostering the use of EHRs, identifying the most effective treatments, coordinating care, re-aligning incentives, and so on. Those are the things that have the potential to make a massively inefficient system work better--not only will that improve quality, it will (one hopes) in the long-run lower costs.

YOur grasp of reality is minimal. Many who have coverage are going to lose it with the reform's coverge rules and the associated costs. Saving money through a government program in health care. Has never happened and will never happen. Yor just a fool in a fool's paradise.

 

[uscitizen]

A million could lose insurance in September

When did you start caring about uninsured Americans?

How many million lost their insurance along with their jobs when laid off?

 

[Greenbeard]

Many who have coverage are going to lose it with the reform's coverge rules and the associated costs.

You're confusing "shifting out of employer-sponsored coverage" with "losing coverage." Someone who buys a plan in a health insurance exchange has not lost coverage any more than someone who takes a free choice voucher from his employer into the exchange has lost coverage. "Losing coverage" means the level of uninsurance goes up. I have yet to see anyone, anywhere suggest that this law will actually increase the level of uninsurance in the United States. In fact, I have yet to see anyone suggest it will increase insurance uptake by anything less than 10 percent.

For reference, the uninsurance rate in Massachusetts has remained below 5 percent throughout this recession.

 

[Political Junky]

How fitting that the OP is from a site called "Hot Air".

 

[saveliberty]

Many who have coverage are going to lose it with the reform's coverge rules and the associated costs.

You're confusing "shifting out of employer-sponsored coverage" with "losing coverage." Someone who buys a plan in a health insurance exchange has not lost coverage any more than someone who takes a free choice voucher from his employer into the exchange has lost coverage. "Losing coverage" means the level of uninsurance goes up. I have yet to see anyone, anywhere suggest that this law will actually increase the level of uninsurance in the United States. In fact, I have yet to see anyone suggest it will increase insurance uptake by anything less than 10 percent.

For reference, the uninsurance rate in Massachusetts has remained below 5 percent throughout this recession.

No, I am not confusing the two at all. Please refrain from deflecting or interpreting things you cannot understand. People are already experiencing premium increases due to the inclusion of the high risk insureds. These increases can, will and are causing people to opt out.

I call total crap on your ten percent increase in insureds. That was the total of uninsured according to the CBO. The CBO said between 6-9 million would remain uninsured even after the program took effect.