Barely won by just under 2 points after outside groups (Koch brothers) poured over $12 million dollars into the race. Yep! referendum on Obamacare
"BREAKING NEWS: Republican David Jolly wins Florida congressional special election, forcing Obama to agree to a full repeal of Obamacare."
The Impact of the Affordable Care Act in the Florida 13th Special Election From the very start of this election, the biggest challenge facing Alex Sink in the FL 13 special election was the significant party registration advantage for the Republicans among likely voters. The samples for our polls always projected an electorate that would be 11 points more Republican than Democratic – a difficult margin for any candidate to overcome. Despite the sizeable edge for Republicans, Alex Sink was able to run a remarkably close race in the special election. Our polling, which showed the trial heat virtually even over the course of several weeks, indicated that the debate over the Affordable Care Act helped Sink more than it hurt her, particularly in creating a lead among Independent voters that almost negated the entirety of the Republicans’ superior numbers in the partisan turnout. Two factors helped Sink level the playing field in the Affordable Care Act debate. First, David Jolly’s advocacy of repealing the Affordable Care Act put him deeply at odds with Independent voters, who have clear concerns about Obamacare but who do not want to repeal it. By 57% to 31%, Independents preferred a Democrat who supports fixing and improving Obamacare over a Republican who supports repealing it. Second, Sink was helped by her decision to play offense, and not just defense, in the Affordable Care Act debate. David Jolly and his surrogates at the NRCC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spent a huge amount of money attacking Alex Sink for her support of Obamacare. The net impact of these ads was negligible because voters were just as concerned, if not more so, by Jolly’s position on the issue, particularly with regard to the consequences of repealing Obamacare.
Obamacare is better than having 50 million uninsured and tens of millions with virtually useless insurance-- the status quo and the GOP plan. Eventually we have to stop wasting almost 30% on needless insurance company overhead and join the other advanced countries. International Experts Tell Senators That Single-Payer Improves National Health at Less Cost http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/...e-payer-improves-national-health-at-less-cost The U.S. spent $8,233 on health per person in 2010. Norway, the Netherlands and Switzerland are the next highest spenders, but in the same year, they all spent at least $3,000 less per person. The average spending on health care among the other 33 developed OECD countries was $3,268 per person. That statistic brings up the much-beloved free market criteria of return on investment (ROI), at which the US performs abysmally according to many studies when it comes to health. An NPR article in 2013 is entitled, "US Ranks Below 16 Other Rich Countries In Health Report": It's no news that the U.S. has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than most high-income countries. But a ... new report says Americans are actually less healthy across their entire life spans than citizens of 16 other wealthy nations. And the gap is steadily widening..... In short, as has been argued before, private health insurance (which we still obviously have under the ACA) increases the cost of medical care, with nearly a third of that cost eaten up by private insurance non-health related revenue. To repeat the testimony cited above: 31 percent of US health insurance costs goes to insurers, while in Canada only 1.3 percent of medical costs are administrative.
A Bloomberg poll shows the Affordable Care Act is “becoming more entrenched.” Americans Stick With Obamacare as Opposition Burns Bright Poll: 64% Support Obamacare Or Want Small Changes Highest Acceptance Fifty-one percent of Americans favor retaining the Affordable Care Act with “small modifications,” while 13 percent would leave the law intact and 34 percent would repeal it. That’s the highest level of public acceptance for the law yet in the Bloomberg poll. Investors are betting the law will withstand political challenges. An “Obamacare” portfolio of stocks that benefit from the law developed by the online broker Motif Investing is up 40.9 percent over a year ago as of March 12, almost doubling the performance of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, which returned 22.9 percent. A “Repeal Obamacare” portfolio underperformed the benchmark stock index, rising 16.1 percent during the period.
Hopefully once we get past the reactionary knee jerk antagonism the right has for Obamacare then we can start to really criticize it for how it does not go far enough.
Progressives should dare the right wing to try and win a Presidential election on repealing/fixing Obamacare, and they are delusional (of course they are) if they think they can con Americans into trusting them to "fix it". Please, they've tried to destroy it from day one and now they just want to "improve it". Yeah, let's watch the corporate whores try to sell that lie to the public. Yeah, that will be fun to watch.
The beauty of Obamacare is that once people expect health insurance and the inability to deny coverage based on pre-existing condition, Republicans will get buried for reversing it.
Yeah, retail sales are breaking records right now and they are saying it's partially due to Obamacare. Health insurance costs have gone down and people are spending more money and helping the economy. Stock market is going up too as long as we don't go to war with Russia.
This will come. Once you get folks focused on having insurance and not just well I guess the private market won't provide it to me so I guess that's that then they will be more open to an efficient single payer system or to really regulate the companies to the point where everyone can have insurance at a reasonable price. The private insurance companies will spin as long as possible and try to buy out the politicians a la Citizen's United as long as possible but they will lose and the people will win in the end. and have health insurance like all other developed countries.
No idea if the author is biased or not... http://washingtonexaminer.com/avera...re-2604-a-month-in-california/article/2545766 Health insurance premiums up 39% to 56% under Obamacare, reach $2,604 a month in California BY PAUL BEDARD | MARCH 17, 2014 AT 12:49 PM Americans buying health insurance outside the new Obamacare exchanges are being forced to swallow premiums up to 56 percent higher than before the health law took effect because insurers have jumped the cost to cover all the added features of the new Affordable Care Act. According to a cost report from eHealthInsurance, a nationwide online private insurance exchange, families are paying an average of $663 a month and singles $274 a month, far more than before Obamacare kicked in. What's more, to save money, most buyers are choosing the lowest level of coverage, the so-called "bronze" plans. The firm provided the costs to Secrets through their new online price index, which gives the averages of what people are paying for insurance sold through their system. In California, for example, some families are paying a high of $2,604 a month and in New York, $1,845. The shocking surge in prices show what Americans not in Obamacare or covered by their employer are paying as they seek lower premiums. Typically, they are not eligible for the subsidies Obamacare offers those with low incomes. "Premiums are increasing primarily because of the new required provisions for 2014 Affordable Care Act compliant plans, including guaranteed issue, essential health benefits, modified community rating and minimum actuarial values," said Brian Mast, spokesman for eHealthInsurance. "It is also likely that health insurance companies expected additional risk in the risk pool, because people with pre-existing conditions could no longer be denied coverage, and may have priced their plans higher to accommodate for this risk," said Mast. His firm's price index also gives an average age for singles buying plans, and the results are worrying for insurers and the Obama administration. That's because the average age is 36, older than the administration had hoped for. Explaining the higher costs, Mast said, "There are likely other factors, but what is important is that moving forward, there needs to be a collective effort to enroll as many people as possible and create a broad and diverse risk pool to keep premiums in check. eHealth can help in that effort by enrolling consumers off-exchange and is pushing to be able to enroll people in subsidy-eligible plans as well." There is a hint of good news, though, in firm's the price index. While the current costs for insurance are higher than before Obamacare, they have come down over the past several months. Below is a cost summary provided by eHealthInsurance: — Premiums have increased by 39 percent to 56 percent, compared to pre-Obamacare coverage. As of Feb. 24, the average premium for an individual health plan selected through eHealth without a subsidy was $274 per month, a 39 percent increase over the average individual premium for pre-Obamacare coverage. — The most recent average premium for plans without a subsidy chosen by families was $663 per month, a 56 percent increase over the average family premium in Feb. 2013, which was $426 per month. — For both individual and family applicants, bronze plans have been the most popular plan type chosen since the beginning of open enrollment. — Shoppers chose less expensive plans as open enrollment progressed. Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.
He is A regular contributor to the Drudge report among other conservative online publications. Also, this... headline First line of article cheeky monkey
How sad that the right-wingers are left with recycling 40+ year-old jokes that weren't that funny to begin with.
Yet another delay for Obamacare. Make it up as we go along. I guess they're not confident they'll hit their self imposed signup goal....which they've already lowered once... http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/03/26/obama-administration-announces-health-care-extension/
Obamacare: a list of all the delays. Pure incompetence. http://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/obamacare-affordable-care-act-105036.html?hp=t1 Working backward, here’s a brief history of some of the most prominent Obamacare delays: March 25: Final enrollment deadline extended. The March 31 deadline — the end of enrollment for 2014 — will be loosened for people with special sign-up circumstances. March 14: High-risk pools extended. The special, temporary coverage for people with serious pre-existing conditions — which was supposed to last only until the health insurance exchanges were in place — was extended a third time for another month. Feb. 10: Employer mandate delayed. This time, businesses with between 50 and 100 workers were given until 2016 to offer coverage, and the mandate will be phased in for employers with more than 100 workers. Jan. 14: High-risk pools extended. The high-risk insurance pools, which originally had been slated to close Jan. 1, had already been extended once. Dec. 24: Enrollment deadline extended. In a message on HealthCare.gov, customers were told they could get help finishing their Jan. 1 applications if they were already in line on Dec. 24. Dec. 12: Enrollment deadline extended. Customers on the federal enrollment website were given nearly two more weeks to sign up for coverage effective Jan. 1. Nov. 27: Small Business Health Options Program (known as SHOP) delayed. Online enrollment for the federal health insurance exchanges for small businesses was delayed. Nov. 21: Open enrollment delayed for 2015. The administration pushed back next year’s enrollment season by a month. July 2: Employer mandate delayed. The administration declared that it wouldn’t enforce the fines in 2014 for businesses with more than 50 full-time workers who don’t offer health coverage. The fines were pushed back to 2015. Nov. 15, 2012: Exchange deadline delayed. The Department of Health and Human Services gave states an extra month to decide whether they would set up their own health insurance exchanges — a decision it announced just one day before the original deadline.
