Obamacare and you

[Jacob]

I, however, have the right to sanctimoniously dismiss pretty much everyone. After all I'm both Scandinavian and Canadian. It's like a super strain. Like the Magna Carta of sanctimonious dismissal rights.

800 years of sanctimocracy

The foundation of Sanctimonity, basically.

[Berkut]

This is an especially stupid argument - all opinions are equally superficial? I presume that doesn't include yours, right - YOUR opinions are not superficial at all, I am sure, since they are the opinions shared by other green drazi.

It's is indeed an especially stupid argument.  I'm really glad that I wasn't stupid enough to even think of it.  Perhaps if your reading comprehension weren't so shockingly bad, and your thought process were a little more tolerant of nuances, you wouldn't have such a distorted view of some things.

I wasn't talking about all opinions, I was talking about your opinions.  You certainly are not partisan, I'll give you that.  However, the method by which you achieve your lack of partisanship leaves you with an enormous blind spot when it comes to understanding how things fit together, as you do not even understand the dynamics of why parties form, and why they are not necessarily a bad thing.

Huge mis-representation of my position. I don't understand why parties form? What kind of ignorant thing to say is that?

If you start off with bad fundamentals, your conclusions are typically bad as well, especially when it comes to judging the validity of other posters' framework for opinions. 

Wow, the irony is strong in this one. Your statement is 100% correct, and you are so blind by your allegiance you cannot see how clearly it applies to you.

Also, your logic that people aligning themselves squarely with one party or against one party (as I freely admit myself to be) are necessarily more wrong on average than moderates is clearly deficient.

Not necessarily so at all, of course. Another lie.

If, however, your alignment is based on the desired outcome of "get that other guy!" then, yeah, you will tend to be wrong more often than not. Or rather, if you are right, it will be based on luck rather than reason.

  If one party has the right idea 80% of the time, then hardcore supporters of that party do more to make their society better than moderates that support both parties equally.  There certainly were times in our history where in hindsight one party had it right way more than the other, there is no reason that these days we're magically balanced to the point where each party is right half the time, however you define that.  That's the difference between reality and the Drazi analogy:  the Drazi conflict was by definition arbitrary, whereas the Democratic/Republican divide may very well be mostly good ideas in deathmatch with mostly terrible ideas.

In no way should all that be interpreted that I think derspiess's opinions are more valid than yours.  He may as well be a bot as far as we're concerned.  I just think that that neither of you are exactly Minsky material, and neither of you earned the right to sanctimoniously dismiss each other.

Blahblahblah.

Your entire argument is based on your intentionally mis-interpreting what I've said about 500 times over the years, and me correcting you each time, you perfectly understanding that correction, then you re-stating the mis-interpretation again next time.

This is called being dishonest.

Neither party is "right" some magical 50% of the time, and not being a partisan hack is not about finding each party equally "right". It is about making decisions that are not based on the parties at all, and not caring to prop up either side because you are a member of that side. That is what being a partisan hack means - it means finding it a travesty of justice when the other guy does the exact same thing your guy does, but being incapable of seeing that. As in this case.

It is not being able to look at an issue without immediately insisting that it MUST BE cast in the light of "the other party is the problem, and voting for my party is not only a solution, but the only possible solution" and any opinion to the contrary must be dismissed out of hand - as you have done. It is insisting that only those who are as radical as you are are "true" Democrats/Green Drazi, and those who do not agree with you in every way ought to be expunged  (Down with the Blue Dogs!).

That is what this is about - not about the same old bullshit caricature of Berkut that you trot out every single time I point out how silly partisan hacks are. What is funny about THIS time is that I pointed it out about someone else, not about you at all, and you immediately sail in to defend your fellow radical, because you've gotten so tied up into this that you've actually painted yourself into the ridiculous corner that not only are YOU not a partisan hack, but there isn't any such thing at all!


Note that your whine here is NOT that yeah, spicey is ultra-partisan, but hey, YOU are not...it is that HE is apparently not either, because apparently such a thing doesn't even exist.


So, is spicey right then - Obamacare is uniquely lacking in transparency, while Republican initiatives are all so very transparent, such that this is a perfectly legitimate claim on his part?


Or is he wrong, but somehow the fact that he has never made such a complaint actually not because he is partisan at all, but it is for some other reason?


Which is it?

[The Minsky Moment]

Oral argument on the subsidy case today, transcript available here: http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/03/todays-transcript-46/

I count a least five votes in favor of ACA, as Kennedy appeared to lean to the government on federalism and constitutional avoidance grounds.  Alito appeared to be against but even he was concerned about ruling against the government's position and explored the possibility of delaying a ruling to allow states time to comply.  Roberts said virtually nothing although he did rescue the challenger's lawyer at one point and at another point made a cryptic comment on Chevron deference (a government argument).

My guess either 5-4 or 6-3 for the government.

[viper37]

Thought it could be of interest.

7 charts that show what Obamacare critics are getting wrong

[jimmy olsen]

Good news.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/17/us/politics/census-bureau-poverty-rate-uninsured.html?_r=1''

WASHINGTON — Nearly nine million people gained health insurance last year, lowering the ranks of the uninsured to 10.4 percent of the population. But there was no statistically significant change in income for the typical American household in 2014, the Obama administration said on Wednesday.

Median household income in the United States was $53,660 last year, the Census Bureau reported, and the poverty rate — 14.8 percent — also saw no improvement. About 46.7 million people were in poverty in 2014, the bureau said, the fourth consecutive year in which the number of people in poverty was not statistically different from the official estimate for the prior year.

Overall, the new census numbers suggest that one major government program, to provide health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, is working, but that for ordinary Americans, especially the poor, the economic recovery — now into its seventh year — has yet to deliver measurable benefits.


"Despite decent employment growth in 2014, the persistent high unemployment yielded no improvements in wages and no improvement in the median incomes of working-age households or any reduction in poverty," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group influential with Democrats in Congress.

"Anyone wondering why people in this country are feeling so ornery need look no further than this report," Mr. Mishel continued. "Wages have been broadly stagnant for a dozen years, and median household income peaked in 1999."

Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the new numbers showed that Congress should revamp antipoverty programs.

"Rather than just treating the symptoms of poverty, our goal must be to help people move from welfare into work and self-sufficiency," Mr. Ryan said

In its annual report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage, the Census Bureau said that the percentage of people without insurance was 10.4 percent last year, down from 13.3 percent in 2013.

The fraction of the population without health insurance decreased last year in every state, the bureau said.

Much of the change was attributable to the Affordable Care Act, officials said, but the Census Bureau could not say exactly how much.

In the last two years, the Obama administration has issued a steady stream of upbeat reports showing a big expansion of coverage and a sharp reduction in the number of uninsured.


To support its claims, the administration has cited estimates by the Urban Institute, the RAND Corporation, the Gallup organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others.

None of those estimates, however, are as reliable or authoritative as the census data, which showed increases in both private and government coverage.

From 2013 to 2014, the bureau said, the overall rate of insurance coverage increased for all racial groups and for Hispanics, who may be of any race.

The increases were comparable for blacks, Asians and Hispanics (just over 4 percentage points) and lower for non-Hispanic whites (about 2 percentage points).

The lack of any significant change in median household income, after adjustment for inflation, was somewhat surprising to experts, who had expected to see some modest growth in income because of improvements in the economy last year.

Edward J. Welniak Jr., a Census Bureau statistician, said the income findings may reflect the fact that there were more "nonfamily households" in 2014.

These households — single people living alone or with roommates, and unmarried couples — "typically have much lower incomes than family households," Mr. Welniak said.


Many households have still not regained the purchasing power they had before the recession that began in December 2007. Median household income was 6.5 percent lower in 2014 than in 2007, the bureau said. The number of households with income above the median is the same as the number below it.


The report included these findings:

■ About 10 percent of households had incomes above $157,480 last year, while 5 percent had incomes above $206,570. At the other end of the spectrum, 10 percent of households had incomes less than $12,280.

■ The pay gap between men and women has changed little in recent years. Among full-time year-round workers, median earnings for women were 79 percent of those for men last year, compared with 78 percent in 2007. By contrast, in 1964, the ratio was 59 percent.

None of the major racial and ethnic groups experienced a statistically significant change in their poverty rates or in the number of people in poverty.

The poverty rate for blacks (26 percent) is about two and half times that for non-Hispanic whites (10 percent).

A family of four was classified as poor if its income was less than $24,230 last year. For one person, the threshold was $12,070.

The biggest gains in health insurance coverage occurred last year among households with incomes less than $50,000 a year. For households with incomes of $100,000 or more, the gains were small.

The extremes of coverage, as often in recent years, were found in Massachusetts, where 3.3 percent of the people are uninsured, and Texas, where 19 percent lack coverage.

In Vermont, Hawaii and Minnesota, small shares of the population are uninsured.

The reverse is true in Alaska, Florida and Georgia. Florida significantly expanded coverage under the Affordable Care Act, but 16.6 percent of Floridians were still uninsured last year, the bureau reported.

 

[KRonn]

Some likely good news on health care coverage, but lots of bad or mixed news about the economy though. 

[DGuller]

Some likely good news on health care coverage, but lots of bad or mixed news about the economy though.

Like what?

[Barrister]

Some likely good news on health care coverage, but lots of bad or mixed news about the economy though.

I thought the US economy was doing very well.  Steady growth, falling unemployment...

[KRonn]

Some likely good news on health care coverage, but lots of bad or mixed news about the economy though.

Like what?

Check the article, it outlines a lot of issues.

[Syt]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/10/us/politics/marco-rubio-obamacare-affordable-care-act.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

Marco Rubio Quietly Undermines Affordable Care Act

WASHINGTON — A little-noticed health care provision that Senator Marco Rubio of Florida slipped into a giant spending law last year has tangled up the Obama administration, sent tremors through health insurance markets and rattled confidence in the durability of President Obama's signature health law.

So for all the Republican talk about dismantling the Affordable Care Act, one Republican presidential hopeful has actually done something toward achieving that goal.

Mr. Rubio's efforts against the so-called risk corridor provision of the health law have hardly risen to the forefront of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but his plan limiting how much the government can spend to protect insurance companies against financial losses has shown the effectiveness of quiet legislative sabotage.

The risk corridors were intended to help some insurance companies if they ended up with too many new sick people on their rolls and too little cash from premiums to cover their medical bills in the first three years under the health law. But because of Mr. Rubio's efforts, the administration says it will pay only 13 percent of what insurance companies were expecting to receive this year. The payments were supposed to help insurers cope with the risks they assumed when they decided to participate in the law's new insurance marketplaces.

Mr. Rubio's talking point is bumper-sticker ready. The payments, he says, are "a taxpayer-funded bailout for insurance companies." But without them, insurers say, many consumers will face higher premiums and may have to scramble for other coverage. Already, some insurers have shut down over the unexpected shortfall.

"Risk corridors have become a political football," said Dawn H. Bonder, the president and chief executive of Health Republic of Oregon, an insurance co-op that announced in October it would close its doors after learning that it would receive only $995,000 of the $7.9 million it had expected from the government. "We were stable, had a growing membership and could have been successful if we had received those payments. We relied on the payments in pricing our plans, but the government reneged on its promise. I am disgusted."

Blue Cross and Blue Shield executives have warned the administration and Congress that eliminating the federal payments could have a devastating impact on insurance markets.

Twelve of the 23 nonprofit insurance cooperatives created under the law have failed, disrupting coverage for more than 700,000 people, and co-op executives like Ms. Bonder have angrily cited the sharp reduction in federal payments as a factor in their demise.

But Mr. Rubio is pressing forward, demanding a provision in the final spending bill now under negotiation that continues the current risk corridor restrictions, or even eliminates the program altogether. That enormous spending bill is being worked out as Congress slides toward a deadline of Friday, when much of the federal government's funding runs out.

"If you want to be involved in the exchanges and you lose money, the American taxpayer should not have to bail you out," Mr. Rubio said on the Senate floor on Thursday.

A White House spokeswoman, Katie Hill, declined to offer the administration's position on proposals that she said were still theoretical. "We are not going to weigh in on the possible inclusion of proposals floated by members of Congress" in potential legislation, she said.

Congress established the program in 2010 to protect insurers against the uncertainties they faced in setting the level of insurance premiums when they did not know who would sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Under the law, the federal government shares risk with insurers, limiting their gains and losses on insurance sold in the public marketplaces from 2014 through 2016. If consumer payments to an insurer exceed the company's medical expenses by a certain amount, the insurer pays some of that profit to the government. But if premium payments fall short of medical expenditures by a certain amount, the insurer is eligible for payments from the government.

The hope was that payments into the program would be in balance with payments out, shielding taxpayers from responsibility.

Mr. Rubio latched on to the issue in late 2013, recognizing not only the importance of risk corridors to the operation of the Affordable Care Act but also the political potency of a program he labeled crony capitalism — putting taxpayers "on the hook for Washington's mistakes," as he said when he reintroduced his risk corridor bill in January.

The "bailouts" of big banks and other financial firms during the economic crisis of 2008 and the rescue of the Big Three automakers that year and the next remain politically unpopular.

Then the numbers rolled in from the insurance exchanges' first year of operation: Losses were so steep that insurance-company requests for risk corridor payments were $2.9 billion, compared with only $362 million paid into the program by profitable plans.

Mr. Rubio says he "saved taxpayers $2.5 billion" — the difference between those two amounts — because his measure prevented the government from using other sources of money for the risk corridor payments.

The administration has repeatedly told insurers that it will explore other funding sources to keep its commitment to companies losing money in the exchanges, but Mr. Rubio effectively tied the hands of federal health officials this year.

Like many other observers of the health law, the Obama administration initially failed to appreciate the impact of the Rubio restrictions. Kevin J. Counihan, the chief executive of the federal insurance marketplace, told state officials in July that money collected from insurance companies would be "sufficient to pay for all risk corridor payments." More recently, the administration consoled insurers by telling them that it would make additional risk corridor payments from money collected in 2015 and 2016.

But in a new report, the credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's says that money will not be there.

Mr. Rubio says Mr. Obama compounded his problems by diverting risk corridor funds to quell a 2013 furor over canceled insurance policies. That year, the president announced that states could let insurers renew canceled plans and continue coverage for several years even if those policies did not meet the requirements of the federal health law.

Insurers were shocked by the sudden change. They had set 2014 premiums on the assumption that healthy people with old insurance policies would move into the new marketplace, but Mr. Obama allowed many of them to stay out. In a letter to state insurance commissioners in November 2013, the administration said "the risk corridor program should help ameliorate unanticipated changes in premium revenue."

Five days later, Mr. Rubio introduced his bill to kill the risk corridor program.

Insurers now are lobbying to get more of the money they say they were promised, or to get relief in some other form.

Mr. Rubio has highlighted the role of Marilyn B. Tavenner, the former Obama administration official in charge of rolling out HealthCare.gov who is now president of the trade group America's Health Insurance Plans.

"The former Obama administration official who led the rollout of Obamacare's exchanges and now runs the health insurance lobby is working with her White House allies to secure a new bailout by providing more funding for the law's risk corridor program," Mr. Rubio said last week.

Clare Krusing, a spokeswoman for the insurance group, said the federal payments were not a bailout for the industry, but a way of stabilizing the market and thus protecting consumers. "When health plans cannot rely on the government to meet its obligations," she said, "individuals and families are harmed."

[Admiral Yi]

The risk corridor does not strike me as a terribly well designed incentive.

[CountDeMoney]

Time to revive 11B's and dersubsidy's favorite whack-off thread--

Benchmark Obamacare premiums jump 25 percent next year, HHS says
By Rachana Pradhan
politico.com
Updated 10/24/16 05:32 PM EDT

Premiums for a crucial category of Obamacare plans on HealthCare.gov will rise by 25 percent on average next year, more than three times larger than this year's price increases, the Obama administration said Monday.

By comparison, average prices for the second cheapest silver-level plan — which is used as the benchmark to determine premium subsidy levels — had increased by just 7.5 percent on average in 2016 and 2 percent in 2015.

The Department of Health and Human Services report, released just two weeks before Election Day, is sure to provide fresh fodder for Donald Trump and Republicans in down-ballot races to attack the law. Democrats, who have increasingly warned about the escalating costs of Obamacare coverage in some areas, have pushed for Republicans to give up on repeal and work on fixes to the law.

Federal health officials also confirmed that roughly one in five people in the states that use HealthCare.gov must shop from only one insurer following decisions by several major national and regional insurers to pull back from the Obamacare marketplaces in 2017. On average, exchange customers will have 30 plan options to choose from for 2017, down from 47 this year.

The average rate increases outlined in the report do not account for premium subsidies for which the majority of exchange customers qualify. HHS officials said nearly three-quarters of exchange customers will be able to find a plan for $75 a month or less after subsidies.

"Even in places with high rate increases this year, consumers will be protected," said Kathryn Martin, HHS acting assistant secretary for planning and evaluation.

HHS officials said their outreach and advertising will emphasize that most exchange customers won't pay the massive premium increases featured in headlines this year. The enrollment period begins Nov. 1 and lasts three months.

Still, the spike in benchmark plan prices may pose an additional obstacle in getting more people enrolled next year, especially young adults who administration officials are targeting.

As in past years, premiums vary greatly across the country. Some states will see average monthly prices for benchmark silver plans spike at least 50 percent for 27-year-olds. Those states include Arizona, Alabama, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. The price increase for Arizona's benchmark plan, at 116 percent, is the highest of any state.

By contrast, Indiana's average benchmark plan price will decline by 3 percent for 27-year-olds. Arkansas, New Hampshire and Ohio will each see only a 2 percent increase.

Because the law's subsidies are tied to the cost of the benchmark plan, bigger premium increases mean the government will spend more to help lower costs for subsidy-eligible customers.

HHS says 15 new insurers will enter the exchanges in 2017, while 83 insurers are dropping off the marketplaces. About 80 percent of customers will have at least two companies to choose from; just more than half will have at least three.

The Obama administration expects 13.8 million people nationwide to pick a plan during the upcoming open enrollment season, about 1 million more than signed up this year.

grumbler compliant link--
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/hhs-benchmark-obamacare-premiums-jump-25-percent-next-year-230263

[derspiess]

All according to plan, right?

[CountDeMoney]

For its haters, yeah.  Free market at work.  Yay capitalism amirite

[Valmy]

All according to plan, right?

Fortunately now that everybody has a green job they can easily afford it.