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http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/critic-sees-aca-godsend http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/im-so-happy-came-along http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/obamacares-unwitting-fans
There were extreme difficulties with health insurance before Obama tried to fix it. I think that you could write thousands of real life stories of people who have lost their health insurance because they had an illness that required treatment, and of people who went bankrupt because of medical expenses even though they had insurance. Health care horror stories are not limited to changes made recently.
:grin: Millions to go uninsured because ... Obama! 38% say they are more likely to pay the fine the government will assess most Americans who lack health insurance. That 38 percent generally approximates the conservative fringe of America, you know, the ones who clung to George W. Bush to the bitter end, the ones who believe Obama was born in Kenya, the ones sickened by America's creeping communism. There are probably a handful in that 38 percent who are choosing to pay the fine for non-ideological reasons. But there are many more who are doing so to spite the president. Because, you see, placing yourself at risk of financial ruin, severe disability, or even death is totally worth it in pursuit of undermining the communist plot hatched at the Heritage Foundation. It's like eating crappy, unhealthy fast food in order to spite liberals. Or refusing to exercise because Michelle Obama. All these things increase the odds of premature incapacitation or death, and ... that's supposed to make liberals sad? Maybe it does, since we don't think "empathy" is a dirty word. But holding your breath until you die is an odd way to spite your political enemies.
I was forced to make the uncomfortable decision of raising the deductible, shared payment amount, and maximum out of pocket cap for my employees' healthcare this year. I was left with no choice given the new regulations and increased expenses. My employees are quite happy that they didn't get dumped onto the exchanges however. I could have saved money by doing that. That would have left me without any employees however. Expect to hear this story repeated often, but I fear that many employers will just drop coverage. This is all one big nightmare and a huge mistake.
That is odd. After ObamaCare I haven't had to pass any cost increases on to my employees. Then again we provide medical and dental gratis and our costs actually went down after ObamaCare. I do know many other firms that are using ObamaCare as an excuse to increase costs passed onto their employees.
The reality is that small employers really shouldn't offer medical insurance. They're being priced out and they should be because a company with 6 or 10 people doesn't fit the 'law of large numbers' rule when it comes to insurance. One person gets cancer or has a heart attack and it blows up the loss ratio for the group--so then, how do you price that group next year? I don't blame the insurance companies/lobby for trying to get rid of these small groups. These businesses will have to do what many small business are having to do: dump their small group plan and give each of their employees a raise[instead of paying that $ towards a policy] and allow them to buy an individual medical policy either through the federal exchange or through a broker & access the individual market ---or the small group can join a PEO. Pretty soon, each company will actually have their own pool (like the big Corps do--they have enough employees to fit the LOLN), you'll have the federal pool, you'll have the individual state pool through the individual marketplace & the small & mid sized companies who pool their resources through a shared PEO model. There is a light at the end of the tunnel; the underwriting pools just need to shift. That insurance broker could have run individual quotes for all those people and likely gotten better results for the employees. Also not seen on the video: what did those people use last year in way of benefits/claim activity that could have impacted their increased rates? I would speculate with a group like that [because of the ages] people are using their benefits--hence the rate increase, especially with that 48/52yr old lady.
Another bogus Obamacare story: The GOP's 'Bette' The centerpiece of the Republican party's attack on the Affordable Care Act following President Obama's State of the Union address this week was the story of "Bette." Bette was an otherwise unidentified Washington state resident featured in the official GOP response to the Obama speech delivered by Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.). According to Rodgers, Bette had written her a letter stating that she had "hoped the president’s healthcare law would save her money – but found out instead that her premiums were going up nearly $700 a month." The lesson, according to Rodgers: "This law is not working." Bette has now been tracked down by her hometown Spokane Spokesman-Review. She's Bette Grenier, who owns a small business with her husband. Unsurprisingly, her story is much different from the sketchy description provided by Rodgers. That description perplexed experts, including Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, who couldn't understand how a state resident "would have no choice but to pay $700 per month more for a policy that meets the Affordable Care Act’s coverage requirements," the newspaper reported. Grenier told the newspaper that she wrote Rodgers after her insurance company informed her that her $552-a-month catastrophic health plan would not be offered in 2014. It offered her an alternative plan complying with the ACA at $1,052 a month. But that sounds like her insurer trying to steer her to an overpriced option. A compliant plan meeting the Affordable Care Act's coverage mandates actually is available from Washington's insurance exchange for much less -- and with a deductible far lower than the $10,000 she was paying under the old plan and broader coverage, though lacking a provision for four free doctor visits a year provided by her old plan. Grenier said she had flatly refused to even investigate her options on the exchange. "I wouldn’t go on that Obama website at all,” she said. “We liked our old plan. It worked for us, but they can’t offer it anymore.” Instead, she and her husband "have decided to go without coverage," the newspaper reported. Does this make sense? Grenier deliberately decided to forgo the options available to her and her family from the Affordable Care Act, despite the knowledge that they might be more suitable for her than her old insurance or the plan being hawked by her insurer -- she says a friend of hers found a plan for a mere $129 a month. But her plight has nothing to do with Obamacare. It's a product of her own apparently flawed decision to refuse even to look into the benefits the healthcare law might provide. And it's another sign of how threadbare the GOP criticism of the Affordable Care Act has become. If this is the best they can conjure up for what might be one of the best-watched TV appearances a back-bench Republican congresswoman gets to deliver, shouldn't they give up already?
Or, they could use the Small Business option and get a huge tax credit to provide their employees insurance on the exchange.
This is on right wing media, they have used fear, paranoia, and lies to scare the public into not signing up. America, thankfully, is going to have a discussion on whether this sort of corporate propaganda should even be protected by the first amendment.
You're right, had forgotten that was another option. It's pretty unfair and misrepresenting to only say rate increase = ACA as presented in the story.
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This is getting absurd. 50% of the articles posted on here or reported on Fox concerning President Obama are proven to be false. All it does is erode any credibility the GOP movement has. If I were Basso I would be a little ashamed. There is no fact checking, just throw it out there.
