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 How 'bout that Obamacare?

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Scorpion
happy jack
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happy jack




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How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/1/2013, 11:33 am

Comments welcome.
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Scorpion

Scorpion


Posts : 2141

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/1/2013, 2:22 pm

Really?  This is no way to start a thread.  How about some commentary from you? Or are you just trolling?
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edge540

edge540


Posts : 1165

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/1/2013, 3:28 pm

happy jack wrote:
Comments welcome.
Did Ted Cruz defund it?
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Artie60438




Posts : 9728

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/1/2013, 8:17 pm

edge540 wrote:

Did Ted Cruz defund it?
Nope,but he did manage to help his party lower themselves to a 22% approval rating. cheers

Now some right-wing morons might go to that link and gleefully yell,"But what about Obama's poll numbers"? Shocked Well,Obama's not going to be running for anything any more and his poll numbers aren't anywhere near as bad as Dubya's were,nor will they ever get there. Meanwhile the idiots in the GOP are running on the insane hope that somehow heathcare.gov will never get fixed. I think we all know how that's going to eventually turn out. Very Happy 

Meanwhile the wing-nut kook media's latest lies are ending up as as most will eventually... Another Obamacare horror story debunked
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happy jack




Posts : 6988

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/2/2013, 10:51 am

Scorpion wrote:
Really?  This is no way to start a thread.  How about some commentary from you?
Commentary from me?
OK.
People don't like having their finances fucked with in a major way, and they don't like being lied to about it.
How's that for commentary?


http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/10/31/obama-shop-around-if-lose-your-health-insurance-plans/

The president's remarks marked a striking departure from his vow stretching back to 2009: "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
And from the final months of the 2012 campaign: "If you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance , you will keep your health insurance. This law will only make it more secure and more affordable."



http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_HEALTH_OVERHAUL_YOURE_CANCELED?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2013-11-02-09-44-38

Nov 2, 10:45 AM EDT

Sticker shock often follows insurance cancellation

By KELLI KENNEDY
Associated Press

MIAMI (AP) -- Dean Griffin liked the health insurance he purchased for himself and his wife three years ago and thought he'd be able to keep the plan even after the federal Affordable Care Act took effect.
But the 64-year-old recently received a letter notifying him the plan was being canceled because it didn't cover certain benefits required under the law.The Griffins, who live near Philadelphia, pay $770 monthly for their soon-to-be-terminated health care plan with a $2,500 deductible. The cheapest plan they found on their state insurance  exchange was a so-called bronze plan charging a $1,275 monthly premium with deductibles totaling $12,700. It covers only providers in Pennsylvania, so the couple, who live near Delaware, won't be able to see doctors they've used for more than a decade.
"We're buying insurance  that we will never use and can't possibly ever benefit from. We're basically passing on a benefit to other people who are not otherwise able to buy basic insurance," said Griffin, who is retired from running an information technology company.
The Griffins are among millions of people nationwide who buy individual insurance policies and are receiving notices that those policies are being discontinued because they don't meet the higher benefit requirements of the new law.
They can buy different policies directly from insurers for 2014 or sign up for plans on state insurance exchanges. While lower-income people could see lower costs because of government subsidies, many in the middle class may get rude awakenings when they access the websites and realize they'll have to pay significantly more.
Those not eligible for subsidies generally receive more comprehensive coverage than they had under their soon-to-be-canceled policies, but they'll have to pay a lot more.
Because of the higher cost, the Griffins are considering paying the federal penalty - about $100 or 1 percent of income next year - rather than buying health insurance. They say they are healthy and don't typically run up large health care costs. Dean Griffin said that will be cheaper because it's unlikely they will get past the nearly $13,000 deductible for the coverage to kick in.
Individual health insurance policies are being canceled because the Affordable Care Act requires plans to cover certain benefits, such as maternity care, hospital visits and mental illness. The law also caps annual out-of-pocket costs consumers will pay each year.
In the past, consumers could get relatively inexpensive, bare-bones coverage, but those plans will no longer be available. Many consumers are frustrated by what they call forced upgrades as they're pushed into plans with coverage options they don't necessarily want.
Ken Davis, who manages a fast food restaurant in Austin, Texas, is recovering from sticker shock after the small-business policy offered by his employer was canceled for the same reasons individual policies  are being discontinued.
His company pays about $100 monthly for his basic health plan . He said he'll now have to pay $600 monthly for a mid-tier silver plan on the state exchange. The family policy also covers his 8-year-old son. Even though the federal government is contributing a $500 subsidy, he said the $600 he's left to pay is too high. He's considering the penalty.
"I feel like they're forcing me to do something that I don't want to do or need to do," Davis, 40, said.
Owners of canceled policies have a few options. They can stay in the same plan for the same price for one more year if they have one of the few plans that were grandfathered in. They can buy a similar plan with upgraded benefits that meets the new standards - likely at a significant cost increase. Or, if they make less than $45,960 for a single adult or $94,200 for a family of four, they may qualify for subsidies.
Just because a policy doesn't comply with the law doesn't mean consumers will get cancellation letters. They may get notices saying existing policies are being amended with new benefits and will come with higher premiums. Some states, including Virginia and Kentucky, required insurers to cancel old policies and start from scratch instead of beefing up existing ones.
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happy jack




Posts : 6988

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/2/2013, 10:57 am

Artie60438 wrote:
Another Obamacare horror story debunked

See previous post.
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Heretic

Heretic


Posts : 3520

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/2/2013, 2:28 pm

Rolling Eyes 

Obamacare's three per cent

Quote :
Gruber broke down the A.C.A. “winners” and “losers” for me. About eighty per cent of Americans are more or less left alone by the health-care act—largely people who have health insurance through their employers. About fourteen per cent of Americans are clear winners: they are currently uninsured and will have access to an affordable insurance policy under the A.C.A.

But much of the current controversy involves the six per cent of Americans who buy their own health care on the individual market, which the A.C.A. has dramatically reformed. Gruber argued that half of these people (three per cent of all Americans) will have little change to their polices. “They have to buy new plans, but they will be pretty similar to what they had before,” he said. “It will essentially be relabeling.”

The other half, however, also three per cent of the population, will have to buy a new product that complies with the A.C.A.’s more stringent requirements for individual plans. A significant portion of these roughly nine million Americans will be forced to buy a new insurance policy with higher premiums than they currently pay. The primary reason for the increased cost is that the A.C.A. bans any plan that would require a people who get sick to pay medical fees greater than six thousand dollars per year. In other words, this was a deliberate policy decision that the White House and Congress made to raise the quality—and thus the premiums—of insurance policies at the bottom end of the individual market.

“We’ve decided as a society that we don’t want people to have insurance plans that expose them to more than six thousand dollars in out-of-pocket expenses,” Gruber said. Obama obviously should have known that his blanket statement about “keeping what you have” could not apply to this class of policyholders.

Gruber summarized his stats: ninety-seven per cent of Americans are either left alone or are clear winners, while three per cent are arguably losers. “We have to as a society be able to accept that,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, that’s a shame, but no law in the history of America makes everyone better off.”


Surprise: “Rate Shock” Fear-Mongering Massively Overplayed

Quote :
This chart makes it easier to get a sense of just what Mr. Gruber is describing:

How 'bout that Obamacare? BX7QIRjCIAAA8-4png_large_zpsa9c19f85

So there you have it, 3% of American health insurance policy holders will be inconvenienced by being legally required to drop crap insurance policies (high co-pays, high deductibles, lifetime caps, minimal coverage) and buy comprehensive insurance policies on the market. For all of their sobbing about the cost, they will no doubt be happy with that insurance when they have one of those unplanned medical emergencies that would bankrupted them with their old policies.
Weigh the 3% who have to pay more vs the people previously denied access to healthcare because of pre-existing conditions, bankrupted with the plans they had when they finally get sick, or who burdened a system with excessive costs thanks to little to no preventative care. If conservatives had shown such care and concern for those so affected by a broken healthcare system, we wouldn't have needed Obamacare, or better yet, they could have designed something better.

But that would have taken some honest work and actually acknowledging what was wrong with our healthcare system rather than useless, emotional grandstanding.
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sparks




Posts : 2214

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/2/2013, 5:24 pm

Heretic wrote:
Rolling Eyes 

Obamacare's three per cent

Quote :
Gruber broke down the A.C.A. “winners” and “losers” for me. About eighty per cent of Americans are more or less left alone by the health-care act—largely people who have health insurance through their employers. About fourteen per cent of Americans are clear winners: they are currently uninsured and will have access to an affordable insurance policy under the A.C.A.

But much of the current controversy involves the six per cent of Americans who buy their own health care on the individual market, which the A.C.A. has dramatically reformed. Gruber argued that half of these people (three per cent of all Americans) will have little change to their polices. “They have to buy new plans, but they will be pretty similar to what they had before,” he said. “It will essentially be relabeling.”

The other half, however, also three per cent of the population, will have to buy a new product that complies with the A.C.A.’s more stringent requirements for individual plans. A significant portion of these roughly nine million Americans will be forced to buy a new insurance policy with higher premiums than they currently pay. The primary reason for the increased cost is that the A.C.A. bans any plan that would require a people who get sick to pay medical fees greater than six thousand dollars per year. In other words, this was a deliberate policy decision that the White House and Congress made to raise the quality—and thus the premiums—of insurance policies at the bottom end of the individual market.

“We’ve decided as a society that we don’t want people to have insurance plans that expose them to more than six thousand dollars in out-of-pocket expenses,” Gruber said. Obama obviously should have known that his blanket statement about “keeping what you have” could not apply to this class of policyholders.

Gruber summarized his stats: ninety-seven per cent of Americans are either left alone or are clear winners, while three per cent are arguably losers. “We have to as a society be able to accept that,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, that’s a shame, but no law in the history of America makes everyone better off.”

Surprise: “Rate Shock” Fear-Mongering Massively Overplayed

Quote :
This chart makes it easier to get a sense of just what Mr. Gruber is describing:

How 'bout that Obamacare? BX7QIRjCIAAA8-4png_large_zpsa9c19f85

So there you have it, 3% of American health insurance policy holders will be inconvenienced by being legally required to drop crap insurance policies (high co-pays, high deductibles, lifetime caps, minimal coverage) and buy comprehensive insurance policies on the market. For all of their sobbing about the cost, they will no doubt be happy with that insurance when they have one of those unplanned medical emergencies that would bankrupted them with their old policies.
Weigh the 3% who have to pay more vs the people previously denied access to healthcare because of pre-existing conditions, bankrupted with the plans they had when they finally get sick, or who burdened a system with excessive costs thanks to little to no preventative care. If conservatives had shown such care and concern for those so affected by a broken healthcare system, we wouldn't have needed Obamacare, or better yet, they could have designed something better.

But that would have taken some honest work and actually acknowledging what was wrong with our healthcare system rather than useless, emotional grandstanding.
Heretic,I think it is really unfair of you to use facts and logic in a debate with Happy Jack. You're going to confuse him.
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happy jack




Posts : 6988

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/3/2013, 7:22 am

sparks wrote:
 Heretic,I think it is really unfair of you to use facts and logic in a debate with Happy Jack. You're going to confuse him.
Are you truly concerned about "facts", sparks?
Can you direct me to the "facts" in the below statement?


"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." - Barack Obama
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Heretic

Heretic


Posts : 3520

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/3/2013, 11:43 am

Artie60438 wrote:
Meanwhile the wing-nut kook media's latest lies are ending up as as most will eventually... Another Obamacare horror story debunked
This was a great article doing the same:  Inside the Fox News lie machine: I fact-checked Sean Hannity on Obamacare

Quote :
I happened to turn on the Hannity show on Fox News last Friday evening. “Average Americans are feeling the pain of Obamacare and the healthcare overhaul train wreck,” Hannity announced, “and six of them are here tonight to tell us their stories.”  Three married couples were neatly arranged in his studio, the wives seated and the men standing behind them, like game show contestants.

. . .

But none of it smelled right to me. Nothing these folks were saying jibed with the basic facts of the Affordable Care Act as I understand them. I understand them fairly well; I have worked as a senior adviser to a governor and helped him deal with the new federal rules.

I decided to hit the pavement. I tracked down Hannity’s guests, one by one, and did my own telephone interviews with them.
You can imagine how that turned out.

happy jack wrote:
Can you direct me to the "facts" in the below statement?
Two thoughts.  A) It was wrong.  The statement was correct for 93%, but he shouldn't have spoken in absolutes.  He could have explained it, as any rational individual recognizes what Gruber was saying - it's better than the alternative, and a small price to pay to save lives.  B) Had he actually talked about the statistics, the conservative echo chamber would have ran on that story, with as much overblown, disingenuous bullshit as they are now, in a desperate attempt to sabotage the legislation.  A President sadly has to take that into consideration when giving speeches thanks to today's media's complete disregard for truth and honesty.

As lies go, it's still pretty low on my "Give a Fuck" meter.  It's a great little piece for the GOP to latch on to and make headlines, but that's it.  And again, if they really gave a fuck about healthcare, we wouldn't be here in the first place.
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happy jack




Posts : 6988

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/4/2013, 9:44 am

sparks wrote:
   

Gruber summarized his stats: ninety-seven per cent of Americans are either left alone or are clear winners, while three per cent are arguably losers. “We have to as a society be able to accept that,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, that’s a shame, but no law in the history of America makes everyone better off.”


…. that’s a shame ….?!?!?

That’s the best you can offer?
Of course no law can make everyone better off, but on the other hand, no law should intentionally screw, at a minimum, nine million people.
Nine million Americans get boned because Barry the Lying Arrogant Fuck knows what is best for everyone, the implication being that they themselves are of course too benighted to know what is good for them.





Heretic wrote:
As lies go, it's still pretty low on my "Give a Fuck" meter.

I would wager that Barry’s ‘little’ lie registers somewhat higher on the "Give a Fuck" meter of those nine million Americans.
And that’s a shame.
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Heretic

Heretic


Posts : 3520

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/4/2013, 11:00 am

happy jack wrote:
I would wager that Barry’s ‘little’ lie registers somewhat higher on the "Give a Fuck" meter of those nine million Americans.
Weigh the 3% who have to pay more vs the people previously denied access to healthcare because of pre-existing conditions, bankrupted with the plans they had when they finally get sick, or who burdened a system with excessive costs thanks to little to no preventative care.

Yup. Total shame. Fuck those cancer kids.
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happy jack




Posts : 6988

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/4/2013, 11:11 am

Heretic wrote:
Fuck those cancer kids.

Yeah, you’re right.
Cancer patients – who needs ‘em anyway?


http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304527504579171710423780446

You Also Can't Keep Your Doctor
I had great cancer doctors and health insurance. My plan was cancelled. Now I worry how long I'll live.

By Edie Littlefield Sundby
Nov. 3, 2013 6:37 p.m. ET

Everyone now is clamoring about Affordable Care Act winners and losers. I am one of the losers.
My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy  has been canceled effective Dec. 31.
My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance  outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits.
Countless hours searching for non-exchange plans have uncovered nothing that compares well with my existing coverage. But the greatest source of frustration is Covered California, the state's Affordable Care Act health-insurance  exchange and, by some reports, one of the best such exchanges in the country. After four weeks of researching plans on the website, talking directly to government exchange counselors, insurance companies and medical providers, my insurance broker and I are as confused as ever. Time is running out and we still don't have a clue how to best proceed.
Two things have been essential in my fight to survive stage-4 cancer. The first are doctors and health teams in California and Texas: at the medical center of the University of California, San Diego, and its Moores Cancer Center; Stanford University's Cancer Institute; and the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
The second element essential to my fight is a United Healthcare  PPO (preferred provider organization) health-insurance policy.
Since March 2007 United Healthcare  has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.
But in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market. The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October.
You would think it would be simple to find a health-exchange plan that allows me, living in San Diego, to continue  to see my primary oncologist at Stanford University and my primary care doctors at the University of California, San Diego. Not so. UCSD has agreed to accept only one Covered California plan—a very restrictive Anthem EPO Plan. EPO stands for exclusive provider organization, which means the plan has a small network of doctors and facilities and no out-of-network coverage (as in a preferred-provider organization plan) except for emergencies. Stanford accepts an Anthem PPO plan but it is not available for purchase in San Diego (only Anthem HMO and EPO plans are available in San Diego).
So if I go with a health-exchange plan, I must choose between Stanford and UCSD. Stanford has kept me alive—but UCSD has provided emergency and local treatment support during wretched periods of this disease, and it is where my primary-care doctors are.
Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.
What happened to the president's promise, "You can keep your health plan "? Or to the promise that "You can keep your doctor"? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician.
For a cancer patient, medical coverage  is a matter of life and death. Take away people's ability to control their medical-coverage choices and they may die. I guess that's a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that's the point.
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Artie60438




Posts : 9728

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/4/2013, 12:16 pm

'For Profit' health insurers,a case of the fox guarding the henhouse....
The other side of 'rate shock': Health insurers mislead customers on Obamacare
Quote :
There's been a lot of media focus on people who have been getting letters from their health insurance companies telling them that their plans are being cancelled and they'll have to pay a lot more for the equivalent plan that the insurer will happily roll them into. What's missing in at least some of these letters, a new TPM investigation finds, is that the customer has many more choices and might be eligible for subsidies if they shop on the new health insurance exchange. Some of the letters don't even mention that there is a health insurance exchange.

One of the people featured is Donna, a 56-year-old Seattle resident with a 57-year-old husband and 15-year-old daughter. Her insurer, LifeWise of Washington, sent her a letter that said nothing about the exchange, telling her she'd be rolled into a new plan that would cost her about $300 more a month. Donna knew about the new marketplace, so she shopped there, and found a plan that would save her family more than $1,000 a month with her subsidy. Donna knew about the exchange and was able to shop around. Some of these health insurers are banking on finding customers who aren't as knowledgable, and will take the bad deal offered to them.

   
Quote :
TPM has confirmed two specific examples where companies contacted their customers prior to the marketplace's Oct. 1 opening and pushed them to renew their health coverage at a higher price than they would pay through the marketplace. State regulators identified the schemes, but they weren't necessarily able to stop them.

   It's not yet clear how widespread this practice became in the months leading up to the marketplace's opening -- or how many Americans will end up paying more than they should be for health coverage. But misleading letters have been sent out in at least four states across the country, and one offending carrier, Humana, is a company with a national reach.
Those four states are Washington, Colorado, Kentucky and Missouri, but those probably aren't the only states. In the case of Donna, the insurer told TPM that their "experience is that our customers are already aware that they have other options in the market and that we've never had to tell them in the past that we have competitor." What he's not saying that his own company had a plan that would have offered Donna a much better deal on the marketplace, but that here was an opportunity to try to dupe the customer in to a more expensive one.

In Kentucky, Humana did dupe 2,200 people into taking that bad deal, but a proactive insurance commissioner heard about the scam and put an end to it. The result was that those 2,200 were released from their obligation to Humana, and allowed to shop on the exchange for a better deal. They also gave Humana a whopping $65,000 fine for misleading practices.

That's what happens when there's an insurance commissioner who is proactive and in a state that is trying to make Obamacare work. In the 36 states that didn't set up their own exchanges, where state government is hostile to Obamacare, who knows how many people are being taken in by their insurers?
You what kills me about ignorant right wing media and their trolls who cherry pick a few undesirable outcomes and then declare Obamacare a disaster? Their warped all or nothing thinking patterns.

Using the same idiotic logic one could make a case for shutting down the Federal highway system based on the small number of injuries and fatalities versus the Tens of millions of accident free trips.

If Republicans had any fuckin brains they would work with Democrats to fix what's wrong,which at the same time would help rebuild their image and credibility as a political party and help their approval ratings.
Sadly,the professional Obama haters will never allow that to happen.
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Heretic

Heretic


Posts : 3520

How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/4/2013, 8:16 pm

happy jack wrote:
Cancer patients – who needs ‘em anyway?


The Real Reason That The Cancer Patient Writing In Today’s Wall Street Journal Lost Her Insurance


Quote :
Monday’s Wall Street Journal features an op-ed from Edie Littlefield Sundby, a stage-4 gallbladder cancer survivor who won’t be able to keep the coverage she currently has. Her insurer, United Healthcare, is pulling out of the individual health care market, forcing Sundby to find new coverage in California’s health care exchange.

But the plans available through Cover California don’t offer in-network coverage for all of the care Sundby needs. As a result, she has to choose between her two health care providers if she wishes to remain in-network.

. . .

But Sundby shouldn’t blame reform — United Healthcare dropped her coverage because they’ve struggled to compete in California’s individual health care market for years and didn’t want to pay for sicker patients like Sundby.

. . .

“The company’s plans reflect its concern that the first wave of newly insured customers under the law may be the costliest,” UHC Chief Executive Officer Stephen Helmsley told investors last October. “UnitedHealth will watch and see how the exchanges evolve and expects the first enrollees will have ‘a pent-up appetite’ for medical care. We are approaching them with some degree of caution because of that.”

Get that? The company packed its bags and dumped its beneficiaries because it wants its competitors to swallow the first wave of sicker enrollees only to re-enter the market later and profit from the healthy people who still haven’t signed up for coverage.

Sundby is losing her coverage and her doctors because of a business decision her insurer made within the competitive dynamics of California’s health care market. She’ll now have to enroll in a new plan that offers tighter networks of providers as a way to control health care costs and offer lower premiums. Eleven insurers are participating in Covered California and for the first time they won’t be able to deny coverage to Sundby or any other cancer patients.
A public acknowledgement they're trying to "fuck those cancer kids" in order to make a buck. Covering sick people is expensive, hence the inherent problem in making healthcare a profit driven industry.  The country could have had an actual conversation on fixing that, but our corporate controlled Congress wouldn't allow it (even you were predictably silent in the few threads where I tried to start a discussion), so Obamacare is what we get instead.  I would have liked something even better, but the GOP was dead set against even that.  

You're feigned concern is appreciated, though.  'Cause we all know had some GOP hack came up with a religious justification to it like they have with birth control, you'd be cheering for it.
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Artie60438




Posts : 9728

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PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/4/2013, 9:17 pm

Another Obamacare "horror story" the media got wrong....
Obamacare 'rate shock' victim changes her mind, calls the law a 'blessing in disguise'
Quote :
Dianne Barrette, the 57-year-old Florida realtor who was paying $54 a month for a Blue Cross insurance plan that got cancelled quickly became the poster person for the "Obamacare is taking my insurance away!" campaign after CBS News ran her story, and almost just as quickly became the face of debunked Obamacare stories when Fox News' (!!!) Greta Van Susteren poked it full of holes. It's been a useful story for plenty of journalists—Erik Wemple of the Washington Post, and Nancy Metcalf of Consumer Reports—to explore what's really going on with Obamacare, "rate shock," and people losing their junk insurance.

After all that follow-up, The New Republic's Jonathon Cohn did some of his own calculations, exploring the plans that were available in Florida and her likely subsidy qualification. He was limited to the information about Barrette that was publicly available and by the fact that Florida is using the federal site and he couldn't really get on it and dig around. Nonetheless, using what information is available, he found quite a few options for real health insurance that weren't prohibitively expensive. He followed up with Barrette to see what all this new information meant to her, and what she now thinks about Obamacare. In a nutshell, she says, "it’s a blessing in disguise."
Quote :

When I gave her a broad description of the plans available, she seemed interested. I noted that she’d be paying $100 or $150 extra a month for policies that still had high cost-sharing, so that she would still be a lot of money out of her own pocket. (I also made very clear that I’m not an insurance agent or broker—that, when she finally goes shopping for insurance, she should talk to a real expert for advice.) Here was her response: "I would jump at it," she said. "With my age, things can happen. I don’t want to have bills that could make me bankrupt. I don’t want to lose my house."

Barrette can't be sure until she sees the numbers for herself. And so far she hasn't been able to do so, thanks to the technological problems at healthcare.gov. But as she’s become more aware of her options, she said, she’s no longer aghast at losing her plan—and curious to see what alternatives are available. "Maybe," she told me, "it’s a blessing in disguise."
Barrette was used by CBS, plain and simple. They wanted a horror story about Obamacare and they found one that seemed to fit the bill, at least on the surface. But the real story is now out, and as a result Barrette knows what her options are and is optimistic about them. CBS hasn't done a follow up story on this, much to their detriment, but perhaps all of the debunking that's been done on this story will make the traditional media a little more reality-based when they approach Obamacare stories going forward.
sigh This is what passes for Journalism these days. We're really in bizzaro world where CBS runs with the story without checking the facts and Greta Van Susteran ends up poking holes in it.
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Artie60438




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How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/5/2013, 11:57 am

Ouch! Very Happy 
Obamacare Site Can Handle 17,000 People an Hour, CMS Says
Quote :
The Obamacare health exchange is seeing improvement and can now register 17,000 customers per hour “with almost no errors,” said Marilyn Tavenner, the administrator responsible for the building of the website.

Fixes include speeding up the web pages so insurance plans are displayed “in just seconds,” instead of minutes, Tavenner, the head of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in prepared remarks at a Senate committee hearing today. The agency also doubled the number of servers and replaced a “virtual database” with a physical one.

“We are seeing improvements each week, and by the end of November, the experience on the site will be smooth for the vast majority of users,” Tavenner told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Her agency is doing a “series of software upgrades pretty much several times a week” and focusing on “the internal architecture of the site.”
Site can't even handle 17,001 people an hour? Worse than Benghazi! Damn you Obama! Laughing
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Artie60438




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PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/12/2013, 12:37 pm

Trio of young coders build health-care website in days
Quote :
(CNN) -- How hard is it to create a website to help people get health insurance under the Affordable Care Act?

For three 20-year-old programmers in San Francisco, it took about three days' worth of work.

Spurred by the problems that have surrounded the rollout of the official HeathCare.gov site, the trio created an alternative, Health Sherpa, quickly and cheaply. At first glance, it looks like a triumph of tech-startup nimbleness over government inefficiency.

George Kalogeropoulos, who created the site along with Ning Liang and Michael Wasser, said all three of them had tried using the government website to get insurance.

"We were surprised to see that it was actually fairly difficult to use HealthCare.gov to find and understand our options," he told CNN. "Given that the data was publicly available, we thought that it made a lot of sense to take the data that was on there and just make it easy to search through and view available plans."

The result is a bare-bones site that lets users enter their zip code, plus details about their family and income, to find suggested plans in their area.

"The Health Sherpa is a free guide that makes it easier to find and sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. We only use carefully vetted, publicly available data," the site reads. "The Health Sherpa is not affiliated with any lobby, trade group or government agency and has no political agenda."

The Sherpa are an ethnic group in Nepal, some of whom have long served as guides for people climbing Mount Everest and other mountains in the Himalayas. The name has come to be used generically for any kind of guide or mentor.

Of course, it's not fair to compare the creation of Health Sherpa to the rollout of the more complicated government ACA site, which everyone from President Obama on down has acknowledged as a horribly botched affair.

For one, you can't actually use Heath Sherpa to sign up for coverage. The site states that it's for research purposes only, and that users must verify the premiums and subsidies they find there with state health care exchanges, insurance companies or on HealthCare.gov itself.

"It isn't a fair apples-to-apples comparison," Kalogeropoulos said. "Unlike Healthcare.gov, our site doesn't connect to the IRS, DHS, and various state exchanges and authorities. Furthermore, we're using the government's data, so our site is only possible because of the hard work that the Healthcare.gov team has done."

But it does cast light on the difference between what can be done by a small group of experts, steeped in Silicon Valley's anything-is-possible mentality, and a massive government project in which politics and bureaucracy seem to have helped create an unwieldy mess.

Creating the original Sherpa site took three days and cost "several hundred dollars," according to Kalogeropoulos. The three programmers have continued fine-tuning the site as its popularity has grown. In less than a week, the site has had almost 200,000 unique visitors and over half a million page views, he said.

"We've heard from people of all ages and walks of life, and thousands of people have reached out to us directly via email, phone, and Twitter to thank us to and to suggest features and request improvements," he said. "Tens of thousands of people have clicked through to buy a specific plan, suggesting that we are achieving our goal: helping people find a health insurance plan."

Maybe the Obama administration can learn from the Sherpa example. As it scrambles to fix the heath care site, the government has sought to inject a little more Silicon Valley into the process by enlisting a "Tech Surge" of staffers from Oracle and Red Hat, as well as Michael Dickerson, a site reliability engineer on leave from Google.
This is truly embarrassing.
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edge540

edge540


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PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/13/2013, 12:23 pm

happy jack wrote:
Scorpion wrote:
Really?  This is no way to start a thread.  How about some commentary from you?
Commentary from me?
OK.
People don't like having their finances fucked with in a major way, and they don't like being lied to about it.
How's that for commentary?
Actually he didn't lie about anything. It's really very simple, if your insurance company did not change your plan in any significant way, you got to keep what you have because it was 'grandfathered' in. On other words jack, if your insurance company changed your plan your insurance fucked you over, not Barry, because it no longer has 'grandfathered' status.

Quote :
"Under the rule issued today, employers or issuers offering such coverage will have the flexibility of making reasonable changes without losing their 'grandfathered' status," Sebelius wrote. "However, if health plans significantly raise co-payments or deductibles, or if they significantly reduce benefits – for example, if they stop covering treatment for a disease like HIV/AIDS or cystic fibrosis – they'll lose their grandfathered status and their customers will get the same full set of consumer protections as new plans."
So please spare us the bullshit faux outrage jack. You don't give a shit about people not having health insurance now any more than before the law was passed.... and neither does the GOP.
But hey, thanks for pretending.
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happy jack




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PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/13/2013, 6:17 pm

edge540 wrote:
Actually he didn't lie about anything.


Okay, edge - grab that life preserver and hold on tight.


"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
And from the final months of the 2012 campaign: "If you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance , you will keep your health insurance. This law will only make it more secure and more affordable."
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Artie60438




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PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/13/2013, 6:53 pm

edge540 wrote:
Actually he didn't lie about anything. It's really very simple, if your insurance company did not change your plan in any significant way, you got to keep what you have because it was 'grandfathered' in. On other words jack, if your insurance company changed your plan your insurance fucked you over, not Barry, because it no longer has 'grandfathered' status.

So please spare us the bullshit faux outrage jack. You don't give a shit about people not having health insurance now any more than before the law was passed.... and neither does the GOP.
But hey, thanks for pretending.
Republicans...defending the rights of American's to keep shitty,uninsured,health insurance plans that cover next to nothing.
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happy jack




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PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/13/2013, 8:32 pm

edge540 wrote:
On other words jack, if your insurance company changed your plan your insurance fucked you over, not Barry, because it no longer has 'grandfathered' status.

No, King Barry is the one who is doing all the fucking here, edge, because King Barry is the one who decides which plans are grandfathered in and which plans are yanked out from under unsuspecting Americans.
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Heretic

Heretic


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PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/13/2013, 9:09 pm

happy jack wrote:
edge540 wrote:
On other words jack, if your insurance company changed your plan your insurance fucked you over, not Barry, because it no longer has 'grandfathered' status.
No, King Barry is the one who is doing all the fucking here, edge, because King Barry is the one who decides which plans are grandfathered in and which plans are yanked out from under unsuspecting Americans.
No, there were only two groups.  Health plans created before Obamacare and health plans created after.  The former were grandfathered in.  AFAIK, there was no picking and choosing by the President.  It was left up to the insurance companies.
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edge540

edge540


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PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/14/2013, 9:41 am

Heretic wrote:
happy jack wrote:
edge540 wrote:
On other words jack, if your insurance company changed your plan your insurance fucked you over, not Barry, because it no longer has 'grandfathered' status.
No, King Barry is the one who is doing all the fucking here, edge, because King Barry is the one who decides which plans are grandfathered in and which plans are yanked out from under unsuspecting Americans.
No, there were only two groups.  Health plans created before Obamacare and health plans created after.  The former were grandfathered in.  AFAIK, there was no picking and choosing by the President.  It was left up to the insurance companies.
...which leaves us this question, jack.
Should "King Barry" force and tell the insurance companies to not alter or change their plans so people can still keep their crappy healthcare plans?...eh?

So jack, are you one of those "unsuspecting Americans"? I know I'm I'm not.
I know a lot of people and do not know of one_ not one_ who  has been told their plan has been or is going to be canceled. ALL of them still have health insurance. Every fucking one.
Amazing, is it not?
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happy jack




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How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty
PostSubject: Re: How 'bout that Obamacare?   How 'bout that Obamacare? Empty11/14/2013, 11:00 am

edge540 wrote:

Should "King Barry" force and tell the insurance companies to not alter or change their plans so people can still keep their crappy healthcare plans?...eh?
"King Barry" should not be dictating to insurance companies, nor to any privately-owned businesses, what may or may not be offered to their customers, so long as the product or service is legal. And it would have been nice if he hadn't blatantly lied to the entire country in the first place when he said:

"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what."
And from the final months of the 2012 campaign: "If you're one of the more than 250 million Americans who already have health insurance , you will keep your health insurance. This law will only make it more secure and more affordable."
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