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Obama bailing out insurance companies


Merc14

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Obama Bails Out Insurers

By DICK MORRIS

http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/195461-dick-morris-obama-bails-out-insurers

Published on TheHill.com on January 14, 2014

One of the least publicized aspects of ObamaCare is its bailout of insurance companies. Far from warring against them, as Hillary Clinton did in 1993, the Obama program is their new best friend

.

Robert Laszewski, a healthcare consultant, points out that ObamaCare is really a giant reinsurance program, capping the liability of health insurance companies. Under its provisions, the first $45,000 of payments to an insured patient come from the company's coffers. The taxpayer, through the federal government, then obligingly will pick up 80 percent of the remainder.

In addition, insurance companies are to estimate their payouts during the coming 12 months every year. If they miss, or the costs are greater than they supposed, the feds will pick up 80 percent of the overage. It is a kind of cost-plus deal for insurance companies.

All told, insurance companies are to get $1 trillion in subsidies over the next 10 years, a staggering amount of tax money. They will make out far better than General Motors, defense contractors or any TARP recipient banks.

As the enrollment in Obama-Care continues, and it becomes apparent that participation by young people will fall far short of the 38 percent projection the law's framers anticipated, this bailout becomes a matter of life and death for participating insurance companies. Current stats indicate about a quarter of the pool of ObamaCare customers are under the age of 30. One-third are in the dread 55-65 age group, the least healthy and most costly of the demographics covered by the program.

It's becoming increasingly apparent that the healthcare reform program has nothing to do with covering the uninsured. Eighty percent of those covered were previously insured. They moved to ObamaCare only after their current policies were shot out from under them by Health Department-forced cancellations. Indeed, surveys indicate that only about one-quarter of the uninsured have any intention of ever entering the program.

Rather, the entire plan is a gambit to switch people from private sector insurance to government-dependent coverage. The goal is socialization, not expanded coverage.

As group policies, particularly for small employers, begin to face cancellation -- either because the policies are deemed inadequate or because rate hikes make them unacceptable -- the ranks of insurance refugees will mount. Millions more, rendered insurance-less through ObamaCare regulations, will flee to the makeshift healthcare refugee center HealthCare.gov has become.

And they won't be happy about it.

The political fallout from the 5 million cancellations of individual policies over the past three months will be dwarfed by the storm that will arise as tens of millions find themselves denied the option of continuing the coverage they had and enjoyed. The mendacity of Obama's claim that you can keep your healthcare plan, if you like it will be exposed ever more plainly to an ever larger group of Americans.

The fallout from ObamaCare will continue and will escalate -- and not just from those who are canceled. Much of the anger will be vented by those who opted into the program and signed up for coverage.

We will particularly hear from insured people who face high deductibles before they see a dime of benefits. An estimated 80 percent of the enrollees are signing up for bronze or silver plans. Do they realize that they will have to pay almost $5,000 in deductibles (bronze) or $3,800 (silver) before they get any payouts? Probably not. But they are about to find out.

Those with insurance under ObamaCare are also about to find out how fraudulent is the president's promise that they can keep their doctor or hospital. With many doctors refusing to participate in the program, the president cannot keep this promise.

When all this hits the fan, the political consequence for Obama and his Democratic allies will be horrific in 2014.

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People are just now realizing Obamacare is a bailout for the insurance companies?

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People are just now realizing Obamacare is a bailout for the insurance companies?

some just do, other knew all along, it is actually hard to miss, if you look long enough from all sides

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To bad a lot of the blind supporter will just ignore the story and just say that you hate everything Obama does because its Obama

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I wouldn't be so eager to jump at the offer to take Medicaid if I couldn't afford to purchase insurance. I've heard lately that those who are on Medicaid will not be able to leave property to their children as the state will demand that their property go to pay back what insurance they used.

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I wouldn't be so eager to jump at the offer to take Medicaid if I couldn't afford to purchase insurance. I've heard lately that those who are on Medicaid will not be able to leave property to their children as the state will demand that their property go to pay back what insurance they used.

it is like that for decades. but it only applys if you are taken to nursing home that medicare pays for.

but even in such cases, there is a loophole, trust.

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To bad a lot of the blind supporter will just ignore the story and just say that you hate everything Obama does because its Obama

A couple will probably be checking in here soon. :whistle:

Most know that ACA collusion between the feds and the insurance companies or the insurance companies wouldn't have been so quick to jump on board but I didn't realize the taxpayers would be paying for almost everything over $45K. This also shows that the funding of Obamacare by making the young and healthy buy expensive policies they'll rarely use is failing miserably.

Edited by Merc14
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A couple will probably be checking in here soon. :whistle:

Most know that ACA collusion between the feds and the insurance companies or the insurance companies wouldn't have been so quick to jump on board but I didn't realize the taxpayers would be paying for almost everything over $45K. This also shows that the funding of Obamacare by making the young and healthy buy expensive policies they'll rarely use is failing miserably.

Wall Street and corporations own our government. I don't know how this is new to any body, in either party. The insurance companies went whining to the government about all the money they were losing, so our government decided to pass a law mandating everyone buy health insurance, and sold it under the guise of "helping" the poor have access to healthcare, neglecting to inform people that there are already programs in place to help people who are uninsured and poor but there underfunded. So, instead of expanding these programs and putting more funding into them, the government decided to p*** the money away on a website that doesn't work......

I just can't believe any one supports this. It's beyond idiocy. I've actually given up on arguing with Obamacare supporters, because it's just not worth it or my time. If they think Obamacare is so wonderful, they need to go outside and pet their unicorn.

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I still remember when the line was that the ACA was designed to destroy the private insurance industry and usher in single-payer (what was that, a couple weeks ago?). Now the realization seems to be sinking in that it's designed not to do that.

The coverage expansions are supposed to phase in over the first three years, 2014-2016. Given the instability in the risk pool during that phase-in and the lack of experience on which insurers can base their premiums in the exchanges, the law has temporary programs in place to stabilize premiums and mitigate risk. Those programs last through the end of 2016. Making sure the markets aren't destabilized before they get on their feet is common sense.

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Am I slow or does this op state that insurance companies will never pick up more than $45k on one insureds tab? All the ACAers are always saying they're tired of paying for someone else's medical services. They also love Medicaid enrollment so beats me, that libs for ya. I remember reading, posting, conversing or something here that a big stipulation of the law was that insurance companies have to spend at least 80% of their premiums which sort of dictates an absolute Overhead and Profit margin which is anti-American and didn't sound right but not the least surprising considering the anti-american dictatorial personality in chief.

Well Kowalski I feel the same way while at the same time I can't let them spout their ideology without being rebutted. A lot of people surf these threads yet never post and they must hear all sides.

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I still remember when the line was that the ACA was designed to destroy the private insurance industry and usher in single-payer (what was that, a couple weeks ago?). Now the realization seems to be sinking in that it's designed not to do that.

The coverage expansions are supposed to phase in over the first three years, 2014-2016. Given the instability in the risk pool during that phase-in and the lack of experience on which insurers can base their premiums in the exchanges, the law has temporary programs in place to stabilize premiums and mitigate risk. Those programs last through the end of 2016. Making sure the markets aren't destabilized before they get on their feet is common sense.

IT IS A MESS! This cannot be fixed and that is the line that we are heading to single payer. Mess, hell the mess hasn't even started yet, wait till the employer mandate kicks in and millions upon millions are dumped into that insecure, nonfunctional, beyond repair website you toodle on about. The financing of it is collapsing faster than Obama's popularity and that will only increase in the future and this thing will become so unbearable that the government will have to bail everything out and take over. Obama said as much at a union speech.

You have been wrong about everything to do with this program yet you continue to pander to people and belittle their situations. Is there something wrong with you mentally that you can't admit this thing is about as screwed up as any federal program ever conceived. Are you incapable of seeing that this is only going to get worse? Even the crooks who created it are running away as fast as tehy can and yet you sit here and spout pablum from democrat pamphlets like everything is fine with ACA. Freakin' democrat zombie extraordinaire or something aren't you? :no:

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Am I slow or does this op state that insurance companies will never pick up more than $45k on one insureds tab?

It does but that's false. The ACA authorizes transitional programs through 2016 to stabilize premiums during the transition as the new marketplaces ramp up. After that, those programs don't exist.

IT IS A MESS! This cannot be fixed and that is the line that we are heading to single payer.

It's a mess because it's explicitly designed to prevent the possibility of the "death spiral" that single-payer advocates would need for their devious plan to succeed (and that conservatives now seem, oddly, to be actively rooting for)?

You have been wrong about everything to do with this program yet you continue to pander to people and belittle their situations.

I'm not sure what you're referring to. I will point out, however, that health care spending growth and health price inflation are currently reaching all time lows, hospital quality is improving, and nearly 10 million people are gaining insurance coverage under options created by the ACA (and it's only January). Pretty much every metric characterizing our health system is in a better place than it was three years ago, even with the ACA's growing pains. This doom-and-gloomerism is bizarrely detached from reality.

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It's a mess because it's explicitly designed to prevent the possibility of the "death spiral" that single-payer advocates would need for their devious plan to succeed (and that conservatives now seem, oddly, to be actively rooting for)?

This is the silliest argument you have made here and that is saying a lot. Are you kidding me? The website is a security nightmare to prevent single payer. The exchanges don't work to prevent single payer? The ponzi scheme-like financing is designed to prevent single payer? The back end is broken to prevent single payer? You're losing it star if that is your argument. Obama told the teamsters the idea is to get to single payer within a decade and you damn well know what speech I am talking about so don't deny it.

As far as conservatives rooting for it you are delusional, they are sounding the alarm and what of it? Should they sit idly by while the most corrupt administration in the history of the country destroys the healthcare of millions? What about the very people this thing was designd to help not even being a part of it? Explain that. Remember that Obama's idol, Saul Alinsky, believed that you had to disenfranchise and frighten the middle class in order to remake the United States or any capitalist country. This rot is surely doing that.

Edited by Merc14
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... if the devious "goal" is single payer government insurance , why this bonanza for the insurance companies? If single payer government health insurance ever happens, insurance companies become, immediately, pointless and unneeded.

Single payer participants would purchase , or receive, "insurance" from the government.. not an insurance company.

I said from the start, that the ACA was designed for the insurance companies... AND the Pharmaceutical / Medical Industry. So, i can't see them folding up the tents and elephants any time soon. (...Unless there are those, even more powerful, that want all that Insurance money flowing in different directions? .. that's possible too!)

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I still remember when the line was that the ACA was designed to destroy the private insurance industry and usher in single-payer (what was that, a couple weeks ago?). Now the realization seems to be sinking in that it's designed not to do that.

The coverage expansions are supposed to phase in over the first three years, 2014-2016. Given the instability in the risk pool during that phase-in and the lack of experience on which insurers can base their premiums in the exchanges, the law has temporary programs in place to stabilize premiums and mitigate risk. Those programs last through the end of 2016. Making sure the markets aren't destabilized before they get on their feet is common sense.

Harry Reid openly said that its a stepping stone to a single payer. So that is their plan. I can link it if you really want.

Edit: actually Ill do it for you http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/08/10/sen-harry-reid-obamacare-absolutely-a-step-toward-a-single-payer-system/

Edited by spartan max2
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Harry Reid openly said that its a stepping stone to a single payer. So that is their plan. I can link it if you really want.

Edit: actually Ill do it for you http://www.forbes.co...e-payer-system/

That you folks persist in this in a thread titled "Obama bailing out insurance companies" is more than a little mind-boggling.

Is there any set of mutually contradictory criticisms of the ACA you can't find a way to simultaneously believe?

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That you folks persist in this in a thread titled "Obama bailing out insurance companies" is more than a little mind-boggling.

Is there any set of mutually contradictory criticisms of the ACA you can't find a way to simultaneously believe?

I was just telling you what Reid himself said.

I don't see them as contradictory. They are both possible goals. Give your cronies money while at the same time making healthcare worse so that you can get the system you really want later on. Politics

Plus when a bill is made its not just one person who makes it so a lot of players are involved

Edited by spartan max2
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That you folks persist in this in a thread titled "Obama bailing out insurance companies" is more than a little mind-boggling.

Is there any set of mutually contradictory criticisms of the ACA you can't find a way to simultaneously believe?

Why are you so engaged in protecting something that is such a monumental failure? Maybe you really believe in this stuff or maybe you are just an empty shill like ninja but you are obviously not an insipid fool so what is your driver? When a program goes bad you fix it but people like you insist that the failure is a myth when it obviously isn't. Why? That is my question to you because you have been here for years defending this mess and even now you pretend nothing is wrong. Are you a Saul Alinsky acolyte? The folks here that listen to you should know your motives and I would never ask a creature like ninja to honor up but you aren't an idiot, you are obviously an intelligent man, so do us a favor and let us know the motivating force that drives you to defend this program so vociferously.

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A couple will probably be checking in here soon. :whistle:

Most know that ACA collusion between the feds and the insurance companies or the insurance companies wouldn't have been so quick to jump on board but I didn't realize the taxpayers would be paying for almost everything over $45K. This also shows that the funding of Obamacare by making the young and healthy buy expensive policies they'll rarely use is failing miserably.

Which is exactly why the hardcore left who support Single Payer were against Obamacare initially until they began to be reassured that it was simply a "first step".

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Which is exactly why the hardcore left who support Single Payer were against Obamacare initially until they began to be reassured that it was simply a "first step".

Yep, it's true

Harry Reid openly said that its a stepping stone to a single payer. So that is their plan. I can link it if you really want.

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Why are you so engaged in protecting something that is such a monumental failure? Maybe you really believe in this stuff or maybe you are just an empty shill like ninja but you are obviously not an insipid fool so what is your driver? When a program goes bad you fix it but people like you insist that the failure is a myth when it obviously isn't. Why? That is my question to you because you have been here for years defending this mess and even now you pretend nothing is wrong. Are you a Saul Alinsky acolyte? The folks here that listen to you should know your motives and I would never ask a creature like ninja to honor up but you aren't an idiot, you are obviously an intelligent man, so do us a favor and let us know the motivating force that drives you to defend this program so vociferously.

Why I'm for it isn't that complicated.

I think we should be paying based on how well health care providers do, not just how much they do. And the ACA is the biggest shift toward paying for value--starting to make sure the way care is paid for lines up with what physicians and hospitals need to do their jobs better, improve quality and contain costs--we've seen in this country. That's going to be huge in the long run.

I think we ought to be thinking about how to prevent the chronic diseases that are dominating our health spending, and we ought to be a lot smarter about the way we get treatment to those who have those diseases now. If better health is really the goal (and it should be), that means building healthier communities and keeping people out of hospitals and the medical system. The ACA takes some steps toward getting us thinking in that vein, which we absolutely have to start doing.

I don't think our safety net (Medicaid) ought to have huge gaping holes in it that exclude certain people no matter how poor they are. There are some other pieces in there that give states tools to make the care delivered to Medicaid beneficiaries better in addition to just expanding coverage. That's important too.

I think insurers should compete on a level playing field based on how well they do and how much their product costs, not how much risk they can cull. And insurance ought to actually be financing the health needs of the population it serves (yeah, that means supporting behavioral health services, and services for families and prospective families and older adults). Consumers ought to be making decisions about their insurance and their care, and those decisions shouldn't be divorced from the quality and the cost of what's available. There's been too much opacity in the system for too long.

These aren't complicated concepts. I could go on--the ACA really is a pretty comprehensive approach to starting to reform some of the many flaws in our health system--but these are fairly major points in and of themselves. There's no vast conspiracy here and, no, you don't need to be paid to think that we're going to be in a world of hurt if we don't start seriously going after the quality and access lapses in our system at the same time that we start attacking some of the biggest cost drivers behind it.

My motives are pretty straightforward: I want a better health care system and I don't think we need to tear it down and start over to get one, we just have to start patching the gaping holes in the one we have. The ACA is the first serious, comprehensive approach to starting that work we've seen, probably ever, and the importance of that can't possibly be overstated.

So yes, I'm for it. I'm not ashamed to be for it and I'm not going to apologize for being for it.

Edited by Startraveler
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Why I'm for it isn't that complicated.

I think we should be paying based on how well health care providers do, not just how much they do. And the ACA is the biggest shift toward paying for value--starting to make sure the way care is paid for lines up with what physicians and hospitals need to do their jobs better, improve quality and contain costs--we've seen in this country. That's going to be huge in the long run.

I think we ought to be thinking about how to prevent the chronic diseases that are dominating our health spending, and we ought to be a lot smarter about the way we get treatment to those who have those diseases now. If better health is really the goal (and it should be), that means building healthier communities and keeping people out of hospitals and the medical system. The ACA takes some steps toward getting us thinking in that vein, which we absolutely have to start doing.

I don't think our safety net (Medicaid) ought to have huge gaping holes in it that exclude certain people no matter how poor they are. There are some other pieces in there that give states tools to make the care delivered to Medicaid beneficiaries better in addition to just expanding coverage. That's important too.

I think insurers should compete on a level playing field based on how well they do and how much their product costs, not how much risk they can cull. And insurance ought to actually be financing the health needs of the population it serves (yeah, that means supporting behavioral health services, and services for families and prospective families and older adults). Consumers ought to be making decisions about their insurance and their care, and those decisions shouldn't be divorced from the quality and the cost of what's available. There's been too much opacity in the system for too long.

These aren't complicated concepts. I could go on--the ACA really is a pretty comprehensive approach to starting to reform some of the many flaws in our health system--but these are fairly major points in and of themselves. There's no vast conspiracy here and, no, you don't need to be paid to think that we're going to be in a world of hurt if we don't start seriously going after the quality and access lapses in our system at the same time that we start attacking some of the biggest cost drivers behind it.

My motives are pretty straightforward: I want a better health care system and I don't think we need to tear it down and start over to get one, we just have to start patching the gaping holes in the one we have. The ACA is the first serious, comprehensive approach to starting that work we've seen, probably ever, and the importance of that can't possibly be overstated.

So yes, I'm for it. I'm not ashamed to be for it and I'm not going to apologize for being for it.

And the ACA is the biggest shift toward paying for value-ACA addresses none of what you care about. Paying for value is destroyed by ACA. Absolutely and completely, There is zero market forces left now, which was a huge problem before ACA and now magnified beyond repair, because the government is covering losses. The government has taken over the market and the insurance companies no longer need to care about efficiency since Uncle Sucker will cover their losses. What school did you learn economics in, for chrissakes, to believe this answered the market issue?

I don't think our safety net (Medicaid) Medicaid? Funny you don't mention the 25% fraud ridden medicare which is federal. Sick the 14000 IRS agents on the fraud in Medicare and the billions yearly in savings would by your 30M uninsured BC/BS. No, the 14K agents are after the middle class. That is where they wil wring every dime out of. What a nightmare.

These aren't complicated concepts. Yes they are. Massive economic change like this is hugely complicated and Obama, that idiot, finally said insurance is complicated and we didn't realize how complicated it really is. What an absolutely stupid thing to say. These are complicated concepts and you simplify them with a silly liberal inability to face the cold hard facts of basic economics, human nature, the evil of big government and the laziness of a great wide swath of the human race. The entire constitution was written to stop the government from taking this much power away from people. I don't think you are a brainless zealot person like you know who but I do think you are dangerously naive. You are obviously intelligent, so why isn't this waking you up?

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Paying for value is destroyed by ACA. Absolutely and completely, There is zero market forces left now, which was a huge problem before ACA and now magnified beyond repair, because the government is covering losses. The government has taken over the market and the insurance companies no longer need to care about efficiency since Uncle Sucker will cover their losses. What school did you learn economics in, for chrissakes, to believe this answered the market issue?

You're confusing a lot of concepts here. Value here is talking about what providers (hospitals, doctors, etc) deliver. The role insurers play in that process is in the way they structure reimbursements. Historically, our system has been strictly fee-for-service: providers deliver a service, submit a claim with the code corresponding to that service, and get the associated dollar amount for it. Doesn't matter how well they delivered it, often doesn't matter if it was the best service for the problem, doesn't even matter if the patient ends up in worse shape and back needing even more services (each billed accordingly, of course) the next week. We paid for the volume of services offered, not the quality or cost effectiveness of the services offered.

And, amazingly, as the years went by we kept spending more and we kept getting sicker. But we had great care available when you got sick--the best money could buy (even though there were serious lapses in the quality of the system)! And it's good that we were willing to spend whatever it takes because that care wasn't cheap and boy did we need it.

But in recent years isolated, relatively rare pockets of change bubbled up. A system covering some of the public employees in California. A new contract strategy from Blue Cross in Massachusetts. They started to show something simple, but revolutionary: if insurers change they way they pay to hold providers accountable for the care they're delivering instead of just paying on the basis of the volume of services delivered, not only could the quality of care improve but cost growth could slow at the same time. An ACA program designed to emulate these successes found similar results.

Under the ACA, Medicare, the single biggest insurer around, started to adjust reimbursements to hospitals to take into account the quality of the care being delivered. Additional adjustments were made to dock hospitals for revolving doors that had patients back in the hospital days or weeks after being discharged with complications or conditions that could've and should've been avoided. Physicians were put on notice that starting in a few years they too would be held accountable for the quality of the care they were providing. Groups of providers were given the opportunity to share in the savings they achieved if they banded together to make sure patients got the care they needed across care settings--hundreds of groups have been taking them up on the offer and early indications are that it's going well.

Then a funny thing started to happen. Hospitals started to invest in resources to make sure that people discharged have the resources they need in their communities to make sure they stay healthy. Over 40,000 health care providers signed on to cost control and quality improvement experiments launched by the new Innovation Center created in the ACA. Preventable hospital readmissions started to drop. Hospital quality started to rise. Health care price inflation dropped to the lowest level since Eisenhower was president, driven in large part by drops in hospital price growth, though physician office prices last year also grew at the lowest rate in over a decade. Health care spending growth as a whole dropped to 50+ year lows, and health care started to shrink as a share of the economy (which I've repeatedly said is the real goal of any effort to rein in rising health costs). The price tags of public programs like Medicare and Medicaid fell precipitously.

Half the states are taking advantage of federal money through the ACA right now to work with private sector partners/commercial insurers to build on these kinds of approaches, keeping people healthy and making sure that the system is paying for results. We're in the middle of a sea change in this country and we're only just starting to feel some of the effects. And it feels good. Better quality and slower cost growth doesn't seem so unreasonable anymore.

I don't know if you'll actually bother to click on any of those links to learn about what's going on these days but you ought to.

I don't think our safety net (Medicaid) Medicaid? Funny you don't mention the 25% fraud ridden medicare which is federal. Sick the 14000 IRS agents on the fraud in Medicare and the billions yearly in savings would by your 30M uninsured BC/BS. No, the 14K agents are after the middle class. That is where they wil wring every dime out of. What a nightmare.

The ACA is one of the more aggressive anti-fraud pieces of legislation for the public health insurance programs in recent memory (like I said, it's pretty comprehensive). There's more resources for enforcement, stricter penalties for fraudsters and tighter restrictions on people who've done wrong, and new tools for rooting out fraud--the feds are starting to use the kinds of predictive modeling tools credit card companies use to spot fraud early instead of the "pay-and-chase" approach to tracking down criminals after the fact that they've relied on for decades.

That said, the fraud some providers commit is just another strike against the fee-for-service system. That system pays based only one what providers do (or claim to do), which means unscrupulous doctors can do things like upcode (claim they did more intensive or procedures than they actually did) or code for phantom procedures that never happened.

Start paying docs for the outcomes their patients experience, the actual health people achieve, instead of just paying for every widget a doc or facility can churn out and the structural roots of fraud start to crumble. That's what the ACA is finally, painfully slowly, starting to change. When I say the importance of this shift can't be overstated, I'm not kidding.

These aren't complicated concepts. Yes they are. Massive economic change like this is hugely complicated and Obama, that idiot, finally said insurance is complicated and we didn't realize how complicated it really is. What an absolutely stupid thing to say. These are complicated concepts and you simplify them with a silly liberal inability to face the cold hard facts of basic economics, human nature, the evil of big government and the laziness of a great wide swath of the human race. The entire constitution was written to stop the government from taking this much power away from people. I don't think you are a brainless zealot person like you know who but I do think you are dangerously naive. You are obviously intelligent, so why isn't this waking you up?[

You're giving me a constant stream of largely meaningless talking points that don't have much to do with how the health care system works in this country and what's happening to it right now. No offense, but it doesn't seem to me very likely you've ever closely or carefully studied any of the relevant points here: what the ACA sought to address, how it's going about doing that, and the early indicators of what effect it's having on them.

Shallow alarmist critiques are a dime a dozen. And even if you had a more compelling point to make, I think you'd have a tough time convincing me of the merits of payment divorced from the quality of services rendered, Swiss cheese safety nets that leave many of the most vulnerable without access to decent care, systems that too often ignore the health component of "health care," or broken insurance markets that don't serve the consumer or the community very well. There's plenty of work left to be done, but the ACA for the first time in a long time offers a ray of hope that we can succeed. We actually can have a better system. And that's why I'm for it.

Edited by Startraveler
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Briefly perused some of the posts and got the gist of the tone...lemme make something perfectly clear from my point of view.

ACA is basically crony capitalism at it's finest hour. How many other private industries get a law that says you HAVE to buy their product? This in turn props up Wall Street as nearly all insurance companies are backed up through the securities exchanges. The securities traders have a guaranteed flow of incoming capitol...yeah...that premium you now have to pay each month...or that the Gov will now pay for you in subsidies with someone else's money (taxes).

If they were concerened with everyone's health...they would do a whole lot more...

How about the costs of a trip to see your doctor? It's sky high now because his education is off the charts in cost and then there is that lovely little thing called "malpractice insurance" (oh...another "insurance") that is costing doctors and medical practioners an arm an a leg because of frivolous lawsuits.

Want to address healthcare costs?

How about the cost of prescription meds that dont ever actually cure anything but you end up taking them for years and years cause they haven't bothered to actually find a "real" cure...There is no profit if you heal someone and they don't come back for more treatment. How about addressing that?

How about $200.00 bed pans and $50.00 Tylenol at the hospital?

They aren't even trying to control the costs...they are propping them up, guaranteeing the mega corporations and big pharm get their money and paying for it with everyone's taxes...which will continue to grow.

Bah....now I'm ticked off again...

Edited by Jeremiah65
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