How to Protect Yourself From Obamacare

[guido911]

Just kidding (apparently)...
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/296333-dem-leaders-wont-seek-exemption

[Conan71]

I went back to the start of this thread and started reading to see whose expectations of what would actually transpire after passage would be most accurate.  The author of the article Bruno cited in 2010 seems to have had a pretty good grasp on what 2013/2014 would look like.

oh yeah... and this is from huffingtonpost.com?!?! zut alors!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-hamsher/fact-sheet-the-truth-abou_b_506026.html

"Fact Sheet: The Truth About the Health Care Bill

Jane Hamsher


The Firedoglake health care team has been covering the debate in congress since it began last year. The health care bill will come up for a vote in the House on Sunday, and as Nancy Pelosi works to wrangle votes, we've been running a detailed whip count on where every member of Congress stands, updated throughout the day.

We've also taken a detailed look at the bill, and have come up with 18 often stated myths about this health care reform bill.

Real health care reform is the thing we've fought for from the start. It is desperately needed. But this bill falls short on many levels, and hurts many people more than it helps them.

While details are limited, there is apparently a "Plan B" alternative that the White House was considering as recently as two weeks ago, which would evidently expand existing programs -- Medicaid and SCHIP. It would cover half the people at a quarter of the price, but it would not force an unbearable financial burden to those who are already struggling to get by.

Congress may be too far down the road with this bill to change course. But before Democrats cast this vote which could turn "ban the mandate" into "gay marriage" for the GOP in 2010, they should consider the first rule of patient safety: first, do no harm.

Myth 1: This is a universal health care bill.

Fact: The bill is neither universal health care nor universal health insurance. According to the Congressional Budget Office:


    * Total uninsured in 2019 with no bill: 54 million

    * Total uninsured in 2019 with Senate bill: 24 million


Myth 2: Insurance companies hate this bill.

Fact: This bill is almost identical to the plan written by AHIP, the insurance company trade association, in 2009.
The original Senate Finance Committee bill was authored by a former Wellpoint vice president. Since Congress released the first of its health care bills on October 30, 2009, health care stocks have risen 28.35%.

Myth 3: The bill will significantly bring down insurance premiums for most Americans.

Fact: The bill will not bring down premiums significantly, and certainly not the $2,500/year that President Obama promised during his campaign.

Annual premiums in 2016: status quo / with bill:
Small group market, single: $7,800 / $7,800
Small group market, family: $19,3oo / $19,200
Large Group market, single: $7,400 / $7,300
Large group market, family: $21,100 / $21,300
Individual market, single: $5,500 / $5,800
Individual market, family: $13,100 / $15,200

(The cost of premiums in the individual market goes up somewhat due to subsidies and mandates of better coverage. The CBO assumes that cost of individual policies goes down 7-10%, and that people will buy more generous policies.)

Myth 4: The bill will make health care affordable for middle class Americans.

Fact: The bill will impose a financial hardship on middle class Americans who will be forced to buy a product that they can't afford to use.

A family of four making $66,370 will be forced to pay $5,243 per year for insurance. After basic necessities, this leaves them with $8,307 in discretionary income -- out of which they would have to cover clothing, credit card and other debt, child care and education costs, in addition to $5,882 in annual out-of-pocket medical expenses for which families will be responsible.

Myth 5: This plan is similar to the Massachusetts plan, which makes health care affordable.

Fact: Many Massachusetts residents forgo health care because they can't afford it. A 2009 study by the state of Massachusetts found that:


    * 21% of residents forgo medical treatment because they can't afford it, including 12% of children

    * 18% have health insurance but can't afford to use it


Myth 6: This bill provides health care to 31 million people who are currently uninsured.

Fact: This bill will mandate that millions of people who are currently uninsured purchase insurance from private companies, or the IRS will collect up to 2% of their annual income in penalties. Some will be assisted with government subsidies.

Myth 7: You can keep the insurance you have if you like it.

Fact: The excise tax will result in employers switching to plans with higher co-pays and fewer covered services.
Older, less healthy employees with employer-based health care will be forced to pay much more in out-of-pocket expenses than they do now.

Myth 8: The "excise tax" will encourage employers to reduce the scope of health care benefits, and they will pass the savings on to employees in the form of higher wages.

Fact: There is insufficient evidence that employers pass savings from reduced benefits on to employees.

Myth 9: This bill employs nearly every cost control idea available to bring down costs.

Fact: This bill does not bring down costs and leaves out nearly every key cost control measure, including:


    * Public Option ($25-$110 billion)

    * Medicare buy-in

    * Drug re-importation ($19 billion)

    * Medicare drug price negotiation ($300 billion)

    * Shorter pathway to generic biologics ($71 billion)


Myth 10: The bill will require big companies like Wal-Mart to provide insurance for their employees.

Fact: The bill was written so that most Wal-Mart employees will qualify for subsidies, and taxpayers will pick up a large portion of the cost of their coverage.

Myth 11: The bill "bends the cost curve" on health care.

Fact: "Bends the cost curve" is a misleading and trivial claim, as the U.S. would still spend far more for care than other advanced countries.


    * In 2009, health care costs were 17.3% of GDP.

    * Annual cost of health care in 2019, status quo: $4,670.6 billion (20.8% of GDP)

    * Annual cost of health care in 2019, Senate bill: $4,693.5 billion (20.9% of GDP)


Myth 12: The bill will provide immediate access to insurance for Americans who are uninsured because of a pre-existing condition.

Fact: Access to the "high risk pool" is limited and the pool is underfunded. Only those who have been uninsured for more than six months will qualify for the high-risk pool. Only 0.7% of those without insurance now will get coverage, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report estimates it will run out of funding by 2011 or 2012.

Myth 13: The bill prohibits dropping people in individual plans from coverage when they get sick.

Fact: The bill does not empower a regulatory body to keep people from being dropped when they're sick. There are already many states that have laws on the books prohibiting people from being dropped when they're sick, but without an enforcement mechanism, there is little to hold the insurance companies in check.

Myth 14: The bill ensures consumers have access to an effective internal and external appeals process to challenge new insurance plan decisions.

Fact: The "internal appeals process" is in the hands of the insurance companies themselves, and the "external" one is up to each state.

Ensuring that consumers have access to "internal appeals" simply means the insurance companies have to review their own decisions. And it is the responsibility of each state to provide an "external appeals process," as there is neither funding nor a regulatory mechanism for enforcement at the federal level.

Myth 15: This bill will stop insurance companies from hiking rates 30%-40% per year.

Fact: This bill does not limit insurance company rate hikes. Private insurers continue to be exempt from anti-trust laws, and are free to raise rates without fear of competition in many areas of the country.

Myth 16: When the bill passes, people will begin receiving benefits under this bill immediately

Fact: Most provisions in this bill, such as an end to the ban on pre-existing conditions for adults, do not take effect until 2014.

Six months from the date of passage, children could not be excluded from coverage due to pre-existing conditions, though insurance companies could charge more to cover them. Children would also be allowed to stay on their parents' plans until age 26. There will be an elimination of lifetime coverage limits, a high risk pool for those who have been uninsured for more than 6 months, and community health centers will start receiving money.

Myth 17: The bill creates a pathway for single payer.

Fact: Bernie Sanders' provision in the Senate bill does not start until 2017, and does not cover the Department of Labor, so no, it doesn't create a pathway for single payer.

Obama told Dennis Kucinich that the Ohio Representative's amendment is similar to Bernie Sanders' provision in the Senate bill, and creates a pathway to single payer. Since the waiver does not start until 2017, and does not cover the Department of Labor, it is nearly impossible to see how it gets around the ERISA laws that stand in the way of any practical state single payer system.

Myth 18: The bill will end medical bankruptcy and provide all Americans with peace of mind.

Fact: Most people with medical bankruptcies already have insurance, and out-of-pocket expenses will continue to be a burden on the middle class.


    * In 2009, 1.5 million Americans declared bankruptcy

    * Of those, 62% were medically related

    * Three-quarters of those had health insurance

    * The Obama bill leaves 24 million without insurance

    * The maximum yearly out-of-pocket limit for a family will be $11,900 (PDF) on top of premiums

    * A family with serious medical problems that last for a few years could easily be financially crushed by medical costs


Real health care reform is needed. But this bill falls short of that on many levels.

Documentation:


   1. March 11, Letter from Doug Elmendorf to Harry Reid (PDF)

   2. The AHIP Plan in Context, Igor Volsky; The Max Baucus WellPoint/Liz Fowler Plan, Marcy Wheeler

   3. CBO Score, 11-30-2009

   4. "Affordable" Health Care, Marcy Wheeler

   5. Gruber Doesn't Reveal That 21% of Massachusetts Residents Can't Afford Health Care, Marcy Wheeler; Massachusetts Survey (PDF)

   6. Health Care on the Road to Neo-Feudalism, Marcy Wheeler

   7. CMS: Excise Tax on Insurance Will Make Your Insurane Coverage Worse and Cause Almost No Reduction in NHE, Jon Walker

   8. Employer Health Costs Do Not Drive Wage Trends, Lawrence Mishel

   9. CBO Estimates Show Public Plan With Higher Savings Rate, Congress Daily; Drug Importation Amendment Likely This Week, Politico; Medicare Part D IAF; A Monopoloy on Biologics Will Drain Health Care Resources, Lancet Student

  10. MaxTax Is a Plan to Use Our Taxes to Reward Wal-Mart for Keeping Its Workers in Poverty, Marcy Wheeler

  11. Estimated Financial Effects of the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009," as Proposed by the Senate Majority Leader on November 18, 2009, CMS (PDF)

  12. ibid

  13. ibid

  14. ibid

  15. Health insurance companies hang onto their antitrust exemption, Protect Consumer Justice.org

  16. What passage of health care reform would mean for the average American, DC Examiner

  17. How to get a State Single Payer Opt-Out as Part of Reconciliation, Jon Walker

  18. Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies, CNN.com; The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Section-by-Section Analysis (PDF)"

[Conan71]

Even one of the bill's chief authors in the Senate has referred to Obamacare as a "train wreck".  Why should anyone be surprised?

(CBS News) President Barack Obama makes a new push on Friday for the health care law with an event at the White House. But the law, which has long been a target of Republicans, is now getting pushback from Democrats.

Getting the new health care law successfully launched is the key to Mr. Obama's legacy. But there's a lot of confusion about just how that's going to happen, so you'll see the president talking about it a lot for the next several months, reports CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante.

On Friday, he'll highlight benefits for women that are already in place -- and urge mothers of young adults to get them signed up when enrollment begins this fall.

"We are pushing very hard to make sure that we're hitting all the deadlines and the benchmarks," Mr. Obama said last month.

The president's health care law goes into effect at the beginning of next year, with signup beginning Oct. 1. But a lot of uncertainty about the plan remains -- and the Obama administration is taking bipartisan critical fire.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, "The president needs to get out in front of this train wreck before Americans, men and women alike, are completely blindsided by it."

An Democrats have used the phrase, too. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said recently, "I just see a huge train wreck coming down."

The importance of the health care overhaul to the Obama administration can't be overstated, as Vice President Biden summed it up the day the bill became law: "This is a big (expletive) deal." But there are fears that health insurance costs for small businesses may rise as the law goes into effect. And there's a concern that rules governing the new law are still being written, even though it goes into effect Jan. 1.

But for the White House, the biggest concern is that uninsured Americans won't sign up for coverage. In a speech in April, the president said, "If Americans don't know how to access the new benefits and protections that they're going to receive as we implement this law, then health care reform won't make much of a difference in their lives."

A recent poll by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation shows that four in 10 Americans do not even know the Affordable Care Act was coming into effect, so some states have begun advertising campaigns promoting it. The Department of Health and Human Services has also announced $150 million to help community health centers to enroll more people into the Affordable Care Act.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives is about to vote again to repeal Obamacare for the 38th time. House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, says he's holding the vote because there about 70 freshman House Republicans who haven't yet gotten to express their opinion.

This signature issue of Mr. Obama's presidency is something he now has to sell to the American people for both policy and political reasons, CBS News political director John Dickerson explained on "CTM." "On the policy front, he needs more people to sign up because that will keep costs lower, particularly younger Americans," Dickerson said. "If those younger Americans don't join these new exchanges, the premiums will go up because the people who do join the exchanges will be the chronically ill. So he's got to sell it to make it work better, so that's the policy piece. And politically, Republicans are gunning for this for the 2014 elections. They're hoping to run against all Democrats on this, so the president has to goes out there and provide cover, explain why there are good parts of it and get out there and sort of rebut the attacks as best he can."

For more with Dickerson watch his full interview below.


As implementation of the ACA goes forward, Mr. Obama's explanations are all the more immediate, according to Dickerson. "This is not a pretty piece of legislation," he said. "Remember how it was put together. This is not a sleek operation with Swiss watch timing, and so it's going to be bumpy and it's going to be ugly as it gets implemented. The best thing the president can do is try and accentuate the best parts of it and also educate people because there's no better voice for educating than the president of the United States."

"All legislation is pretty ugly and this was particularly ugly because of the way it was put together and it had to be jammed through at the end," Dickerson added. "It's complicated -- it's dealing with bringing millions of new people into this insurance system. It's forcing people to change the way they do things, and so it's got lots and lots of different moving parts. And also, by the way, when Democrats talk about 'train wreck' here, what they're saying, some of them, is Republicans have not funded this as much as we, the Democrats, would like and also Republicans governors are dragging their feet. So there's some opposition that's constant here."

[Gaspar]

Even one of the bill's chief authors in the Senate has referred to Obamacare as a "train wreck".  Why should anyone be surprised?

He has so many legacies now.  He has elevated Carter to mediocre.

[Gaspar]

Disregard!
He got Ben Laden and killed thousands of terrorists.

[AquaMan]

The disregard is at least the last page of this thread and dang near the whole thread. Its humorous, if not tragic, to see this state run headlong towards less than mediocrity all the while blaming the president. Even though your criticisms are hurled with $20 dollar sentences, they represent 50 cent bumper sticker thoughts (thank you Hemingway). Hospitals will suffer, the state will pay more for its insurance and eventually be punished administratively (funds withheld from Federal programs).

Fallin is a true embarrassment of Inhofe proportions.

But don't let the faint voices of progress and inevitability spoil your parade. Continue' s'il vous plais. Let not the circle jerk be unbroken!

[Conan71]

The disregard is at least the last page of this thread and dang near the whole thread. Its humorous, if not tragic, to see this state run headlong towards less than mediocrity all the while blaming the president. Even though your criticisms are hurled with $20 dollar sentences, they represent 50 cent bumper sticker thoughts (thank you Hemingway). Hospitals will suffer, the state will pay more for its insurance and eventually be punished administratively (funds withheld from Federal programs).

Fallin is a true embarrassment of Inhofe proportions.

But don't let the faint voices of progress and inevitability spoil your parade. Continue' s'il vous plais. Let not the circle jerk be unbroken!

Huh?

So I guess the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Congress is okay by you since it represents "progress"?  If they wanted single-payer, they should have been honest and up-front and gone for that instead of crafting something so destined for failure that single payer would be the eventual result.  Considering Obama based a lot of his political legacy on this POS, he rightly deserves criticism.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Huh?

So I guess the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Congress is okay by you since it represents "progress"? 

Geez....what a thread drift!!  How did you go from this topic to the Patriot Act, the true worst piece of legislation ever passed by Congress....?

[Gaspar]

Geez....what a thread drift!!  How did you go from this topic to the Patriot Act, the true worst piece of legislation ever passed by Congress....?

I'd call it a tie.  Both strike terrible and devastating blows to our freedoms.  Obamacare however comes with a price-tag and creates a level of uncertainty that we are only now beginning to quantify, and we know it cannot be sustainable.  Ultimately it will be a single payer system, and we will end up with two classes of healthcare operated out of separate facilities.  Low quality government for most of the middle and lower classes, and private healthcare for upper-middle and rich.  The quality of the single-payer option will decline every year as the expense grows, even thought the cost will be the same and in many cases more expensive as the private option.  Basically just like public education.  We will just have to learn the lesson again.  No turning back now.

[AquaMan]

Huh?

So I guess the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Congress is okay by you since it represents "progress"?  If they wanted single-payer, they should have been honest and up-front and gone for that instead of crafting something so destined for failure that single payer would be the eventual result.  Considering Obama based a lot of his political legacy on this POS, he rightly deserves criticism.

I do miss our resident BS detector (the clown).

I would remind you that Social Security, Civil Rights legislation and the repeal of prohibition were all viewed as the worst legislation ever passed by Congress. None of them were. The worst was probably legislation designed to thwart the natural progression of those societal trends.

Fallin is stupidly following the advice of hard rock anti-Obama supporters who wouldn't vote for any type of change he proposed.

[Gaspar]

I do miss our resident BS detector (the clown).

He'll be back, alway is, or another will take his seat.  Forums abhor a vacuum, and without or resident capitalism hater there is a bit of a hole.

"Capitalism needs neither propaganda nor apostles. Its achievements speak for themselves." -Ludwig von Mises

[Conan71]

I do miss our resident BS detector (the clown).

I would remind you that Social Security, Civil Rights legislation and the repeal of prohibition were all viewed as the worst legislation ever passed by Congress. None of them were. The worst was probably legislation designed to thwart the natural progression of those societal trends.

Fallin is stupidly following the advice of hard rock anti-Obama supporters who wouldn't vote for any type of change he proposed.

The Social Security Act, CRA's, and repeal of prohibition were not near as intricate and complicated.  I've never read the entire content of any of those bills, I suspect they were not 2000 page behemoths.  Obamacare is already proving to miss cost estimates and objectives.  The roll-out is so complicated and convoluted, even some of the bill's original backers are warning this is a huge train wreck coming.  I suspect we are going to see a whole lot of last minute exemptions granted or even a delay in the start of the program implementation unless Secretary Sebelius can get this organized and under control. 

Just one example of the consequences of this law: there's currently a gap in coverage for high risk people due to the Obama administration cutting off new enrollment in state high risk pools.  My wife is struggling to find coverage for a client whose COBRA coverage is coming to an end next month.  He's got health issues which are an automatic reject for an individual health care plan.  So now what happens if he has to go to a hospital and long-term care facility after COBRA runs out?  Many people are facing this dilemma right now.

Why do I care about that particular issue?  The Affordable Care Act was sold as the panacea to pre-existing conditions.  It was sold as many things which it is not and will never be.  One of those things is "affordable".

[Red Arrow]

Social Security has changed somewhat from the 1935 legislation.

Old age pension rates were from $10 to $85/month.  That would be about $142 to $1214/ month in 2013 dollars.  There were also a lot of people not included in the original package.

I have only had a little time to read some of this today but here are some links to Social Security history and an inflation calculator.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/law.html

http://www.ssa.gov/history/1935chart1.html

http://www.ssa.gov/history/1935chart2.html

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

[Red Arrow]

The Social Security Act, CRA's, and repeal of prohibition were not near as intricate and complicated.  I've never read the entire content of any of those bills, I suspect they were not 2000 page behemoths. 

Doesn't appear to be 2000 pages.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/35act.html

[Gaspar]

Doesn't appear to be 2000 pages.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/35act.html

Well, that was back when they read legislation.