Obamacare cost...

[snowcat]

WTF?!?

I might have to fire all my employees including myself.

If my premiums doubled, I would have to drop health insurance for our employees.

[Eddie]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...-premiums.html

I like how he refers to it as the Affordable Care Act when talking about how unaffordable this is going to make insurance in the future.

It will be interesting, that's for sure. That said - I have a hard time believing that something won't change to make this not happen. A LOT of folks are going to lose their insurance if/when this happens.

Of course, the conspiracy theorists would have us believe that the intent was to make everything so expensive that a single pay system with government run health care will suddenly become very appealing...

[venkman]

I like how he refers to it as the Affordable Care Act when talking about how unaffordable this is going to make insurance in the future.

It will be interesting, that's for sure. That said - I have a hard time believing that something won't change to make this not happen. A LOT of folks are going to lose their insurance if/when this happens.

Of course, the conspiracy theorists would have us believe that the intent was to make everything so expensive that a single pay system with government run health care will suddenly become very appealing...

Brilliant plan, wasn't it. I saw it coming a mile away.

http://www.cougaruteforum.com/showpo...43&postcount=2

[Uncle Ted]

Why Obamacare's Health Care Cost Controls Won't Work

Was Obamacare intended as a cost-control bill? Some Democrats have portrayed it that way. But in a presentation to lobbying groups given just a few months after the law passed, David Bowen, who served as a Democratic health staff director of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee while the law was being written, suggested otherwise.

“This is a coverage bill, not a cost reduction bill,” he told a group of K Street staffers in what was billed as a behind the scenes look at the law’s development, according to a report by The Washington Examiner’s Timothy Carney. “There is stuff here that will begin to address the issue of cost, but this is not a cost reduction bill with a bit of coverage on it—it is really trying to get coverage first.”

[References to lots of studies that show how the cost cutting measures in Obamacare did little or nothing to control costs or actually increased costs like...]

Obamacare is not the only major legislation passed under President Obama to attempt to control health care costs. The 2009 stimulus bill also included some $30 billion in incentives for hospitals to adopt new information technology systems. The goal, according a memo drafted by health advisers to President Obama’s first campaign, was to use health care information more prudently in order to “produce savings in health spending.” Yet an investigation published by The New York Times in September found that the new health I.T. systems were actually helping hospitals bill Medicare to the tune of up to $1 billion a year more. The stimulus spent billions of taxpayer money on new technology that was supposed to cut costs—but it ended up making the government’s biggest health program more expensive.

[We all know that the New York Times lies so let's ask the CBO...]

The truth is that all we really know about health care cost control is that we don’t know very much at all. When the Congressional Budget Office released a report examining the results of 34 Medicare pilot programs intended to improve the cost and quality of health care, it found little success. "On average, the 34 programs had little or no effect on hospital admissions," the report said. "In nearly every program, spending was either unchanged or increased relative to the spending that would have occurred in the absence of the program, when the fees paid to the participating organizations were considered." It also looked at four programs intended to reduce spending through payment incentives to provider organizations. One focused on heart bypass savings showed a 10 percent savings. But the other three "appear to have resulted in little or no savings for Medicare."

Summarizing Medicare’s history of attempted care and cost-control innovations, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf gave little reason for hope. “The demonstration projects that Medicare has done in this and other areas are often disappointing,” he said in 2011 congressional testimony, according to The Fiscal Times. “It turns out to be pretty hard to take ideas that seem to work in certain contexts and proliferate that throughout the health care system. The results are discouraging.”

There is little reason to believe that Obamacare will lower healthcare costs. It seems the only hope for small businesses are the health insurance tax credits. Of course, a small business need to make enough money to take advantage of those credits.

[NorthShoreCoug]

Here's an interesting development in the attempts to implement Obamacare:

Oklahoma lawsuit challenges IRS ruling

[Goatnapper'96]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-1...-premiums.html

The actuaries are having a hell of a time trying to work out the concept that anyone can show up and get insurance anytime they want it. Oddly, many are concluding that the tax/penalty/whatever Chief Justice Roberts called it is not a high enough penalty to increase the pools enough to offset the ones who will show up once they find out they are sick. We are partially self-funded. If your entity has at least 30 employees it is the way to go.

[Goatnapper'96]

Why Obamacare's Health Care Cost Controls Won't Work



There is little reason to believe that Obamacare will lower healthcare costs. It seems the only hope for small businesses are the health insurance tax credits. Of course, a small business need to make enough money to take advantage of those credits.

There is no way any politician would vote for the changes that would have an impact on the actual cost of health care. Health Insurance has evolved into a method of pre-paying for unlimited health care. Any measure that moved the consumer closer to what health care actually costs would not be politically popular. There are things that can be done around the edges but I am not sure this can be fixed by folks that need to be voted into office.

[LA Ute]

I guess this fits here. It's an interesting short piece -- one physician interviewing another physician who worked in the federal office responsible for overseeing accountable care organizations (ACOs). They talk about how ACOs are supposed to work.

Why ACOs Are not HMOs and Other Important Questions

[Uncle Ted]

A medical company is blaming President Obama’s health care law for the layoffs of nearly 100 people.

Smith & Nephew says a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices in the “Obamacare” law caused the layoffs in the Memphis and Andover, Mass., offices.


“The nearly $30 billion tax on medical devices that took effect Jan. 1, 2013, has impacted a number of companies across the U.S.,” the company said in a statement to WHBQ-TV.

Joe Metzger, senior vice president of corporate communications for the company, tells the Memphis Business Journal that they were “not immune” to the tax burden.

“Unfortunately, and in order to absorb this cost burden into our business, this has meant less than 100 positions have been made redundant across various departmental functions in our Tennessee and Massachusetts sites,” Metzger told the Business Journal.
[...]

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/...ly-100-people/

[il Padrino Ute]

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/...ly-100-people/

Unintended or intended consequences?

[Uncle Ted]

The latest report on Obamacare from the CBO...

The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office highlights a number of reasons why the CBO is concerned about the implementation of Obamacare. It boils down to this: Obamacare is going to be more expensive than the Obama administration thought, disrupt the marketplace more than they thought, and be tougher to implement than they thought.

[...]

It seems we all will be begging for socialized medicine if this gets worse but maybe that is the plan.

[Realtall]

The latest report from the Congressional Budget Office highlights a number of reasons why the CBO is concerned about the implementation of Obamacare. It boils down to this: Obamacare is going to be more expensive than the Obama administration thought, disrupt the marketplace more than they thought, and be tougher to implement than they thought.

You know, it shocks me that obamacare is going to be more expensive then bho let on. It seems that either he didn't have all the facts or he chose not to share them.

Oh well, at least it was a little mistake.

[The_Douger]

That's why we had to pass the bill, so we could see what's in it.

[Uncle Ted]

California lacks doctors to meet demand of national healthcare law

As the state moves to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Californians under President Obama's healthcare law, it faces a major obstacle: There aren't enough doctors to treat a crush of newly insured patients.

Some lawmakers want to fill the gap by redefining who can provide healthcare.

They are working on proposals that would allow physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices. Pharmacists and optometrists could act as primary care providers, diagnosing and managing some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.

[...]

I wasn't sure if this needed to be filed under "What's wrong with California" or this thread.

[Indy Coug]

Pssst! It's about to get a lot more "affordable"

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...054496682.html