Obamacare cost...

[snowcat]

Rate Shock: In California, Obamacare To Increase Individual Health Insurance Premiums By 64-146%

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapoth...ums-by-64-146/

For both 25-year-olds and 40-year-olds, then, Californians under Obamacare who buy insurance for themselves will see their insurance premiums double.

[Blueintheface]

Hope and (all your) change.

[Uncle Ted]

Rate Shock: In California, Obamacare To Increase Individual Health Insurance Premiums By 64-146%

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapoth...ums-by-64-146/

Pelosi is going to need a better "toolkit"...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/144416376/...ss-Packet-Copy

[calicoug]

Rate Shock: In California, Obamacare To Increase Individual Health Insurance Premiums By 64-146%

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapoth...ums-by-64-146/

This is a total fabrication. California is a huge success story for Obamacare. No wonder the GOP is struggling to find something- anything- to hide that fact.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...es-rate-shock/
http://www.newrepublic.com/node/113362#
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...aster-part-176

[Uncle Ted]

This is a total fabrication. California is a huge success story for Obamacare. No wonder the GOP is struggling to find something- anything- to hide that fact.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...es-rate-shock/
http://www.newrepublic.com/node/113362#
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...aster-part-176

I'm guessing there are a lot of dems in California up for re-election in the upcoming cycle that really want to keep their jobs.

Obamacare's California Insurance Premiums Are Soaring - This Is Fact

The great American experiment in democracy is currently failing. In proof of that, I give you Exhibit A: We cannot even agree on the basic fact of whether health insurance premiums are rising or falling under Obamacare. Note, this is not a matter even of opinion. It is a matter of simple fact, right or wrong. But if we can’t agree on what the basic facts are, we cannot analyze Obamacare, or even discuss it intelligently.


The problem began with contentious California bureaucrats running the California Obamacare Exchange, named Covered California. They released the rates that insurance companies bid to sell the required insurance to individual purchasers on the California Obamacare Exchange. See if you can immediately spot the dishonest fallacy in the key summary statement in the Covered California press release: “The rates submitted to Covered California for the 2014 individual market ranged from 2 percent above to 29 percent below the 2013 average premium for small employer plans in California’s most populous regions.

This is like a California Chevy dealer in a year when the price of new Chevys has soared, issuing a press release that says, “The prices for new Chevy autos and trucks this year ranged from 2 percent above to 29 percent below the average price this year for new Cadillac autos and trucks in California’s most populous regions.”


Actually, it is worse even than that. Because the Covered California press release compared the prices of individual insurance to the prices for small business insurance, it is more like a Chevy dealer press release that says, “The prices for new Chevy autos and trucks this year ranged from 2 percent above to 29 percent below the average price this year for new small buses and dump trucks.”

But that misstatement of the basic facts is all it took for media organs of Leftist so-called Progressivism to crank up the celebratory pipes. Peter Lee, Executive Director of the Covered California Exchange kicked off the dishonest, misleading rhetoric, proclaiming regarding the newly announced rates, “This is a home run for consumers in every region of California.” He reached that conclusion by comparing Yankee Stadium home runs to Lambeau Field touchdowns.
[...]

[LA Ute]

California is a huge success story for Obamacare.

I have no words to describe the silliness of that statement.

[calicoug]

I have no words to describe the silliness of that statement.

This process worked exactly how it should have. Multiple providers submitted bids. Then they realized they were higher than competitors. So they dropped their bids. And kept dropping them to a point that was lower than what had actually been expected. Competition was introduced into a marketplace and prices dropped. Not long ago, that would have been called a conservative concept.

[il Padrino Ute]

I have no words to describe the silliness of that statement.

Blind and willing servitude.

[Omaha 680]

This process worked exactly how it should have. Multiple providers submitted bids. Then they realized they were higher than competitors. So they dropped their bids. And kept dropping them to a point that was lower than what had actually been expected. Competition was introduced into a marketplace and prices dropped. Not long ago, that would have been called a conservative concept.

See Ted's response above. The conclusion that premiums are dropping is not comparing like policies.

[Uncle Ted]

This process worked exactly how it should have. Multiple providers submitted bids. Then they realized they were higher than competitors. So they dropped their bids. And kept dropping them to a point that was lower than what had actually been expected. Competition was introduced into a marketplace and prices dropped. Not long ago, that would have been called a conservative concept.

Where did all these new competitors come from that where not already there and selling in the market place? Before Obamacare there was no competition in the marketplace and the insurance companies got to demand whatever price they wanted?

I am happy to hear, however, that liberals have finally figured out that a valid way to lowering health care/insurance costs is increasing competition. Now they have no reason to be against lifting the regulation and allowing insurance companies to sell across state boundaries to actually introduce more competition into the marketplace. Sure it might lead to deregulation and less money lining the pockets of dems from the large state insurance companies that want to keep the competition level low but it would actually lower the cost of health insurance given the explanation you used above.

[calicoug]

Where did all these new competitors come from that where not already there and selling in the market place? Before Obamacare there was no competition in the marketplace and the insurance companies got to demand whatever price they wanted?

I am happy to hear, however, that liberals have finally figured out that a valid way to lowering health care/insurance costs is increasing competition. Now they have no reason to be against lifting the regulation and allowing insurance companies to sell across state boundaries to actually introduce more competition into the marketplace. Sure it might lead to deregulation and less money lining the pockets of dems from the large state insurance companies that want to keep the competition level low but it would actually lower the cost of health insurance given the explanation you used above.

There were basically two paths Congress could have followed to increase competition. The first, which you describe above, would have been to allow purchases of insurance across state lines. The obvious problem with that approach is that it leads to the proverbial race to the bottom. Just as has occurred with credit card companies and many other industries, it wouldn't be long before a state or group of states would effectively remove all consumer protections in order to draw the insurance companies to set up business in their state. Once the insurance companies all relocate, even though consumers are technically capable of purchasing insurance products within their state, they would find no such insurance companies would actually exist or meaningfully be able to compete with the insurance companies in the nonregulation states.

The second path is the one which Congress actually chose. Under that path, the federal government establishes the minimum requirements for participation in a specific market. This ensures a floor to the race to the bottom. As a result, a company cannot broadcast an extremely low price while hiding the fact that deductibles are enormous and lifetime caps are low, for example. It would have been better for Congress to establish a national exchange in order to then have a truly national marketplace with many competitors participating irrespective of the state in which they are located. However, as a nod to states rights, Congress instead allowed each state to set up its own exchange. States are also free to enter into agreements with other states to allow purchasing from such other state. New England, for example, has already adopted such an approach.

As to your first question, this isn't an issue in California of new competitors appearing overnight. Rather, competitors are finally being required to compete on a similar baseline of terms and on a transparent basis. The increased transparency into the marketplace is fueling the competition and driving prices lower. It is a good sign for Obamacare.

[calicoug]

See Ted's response above. The conclusion that premiums are dropping is not comparing like policies.

Fair enough. It's admittedly difficult to compare across all insurance products pre and post Obamacare and make blanket statements like "premiums are dropping" or "premiums are increasing." That said, the Forbes piece chose as its baseline an insurance product which isn't available except to the healthiest and young and which has very high deductibles and only covers about 60% of covered costs. That's a really bad baseline. The Exchanges, on the other hand, have good insurance products with broad scopes of coverage which is what most employed people in the US have today if their employer offers care.

[Uncle Ted]

Fair enough. It's admittedly difficult to compare across all insurance products pre and post Obamacare and make blanket statements like "premiums are dropping" or "premiums are increasing." That said, the Forbes piece chose as its baseline an insurance product which isn't available except to the healthiest and young and which has very high deductibles and only covers about 60% of covered costs. That's a really bad baseline. The Exchanges, on the other hand, have good insurance products with broad scopes of coverage which is what most employed people in the US have today if their employer offers care.

Yes, the bottom line is how much lighter your wallet is going to be at the end of the month. It seems that you young men, those 39 (or even 49) and younger, are going to get screwed given you will be subsidizing '71's, PAC's and apparently women's health insurance costs...


130513015935-obamacare-premiums-620xa.jpg

[Shaka]

My wallet is close to $200 lighter each month because of Obamacare. You can piss in my ear and tell me it's raining but most likely I'll think you've lost your argument before it began. Also I may want to visit violence upon you.

[Uncle Ted]

Yeah, mine is a lot lighter thanks, in part, to not being able to get my deadbeat kids to get their own insurance. Now I get to insure them until they are 26.