How 'bout that Obamacare?

happy jack wrote:

It was clear that I was referencing the Obama administration when I asked that question.

Yeah right.
The only thing that clear is that your question is nothing more than disingenuous, partisan GOP-Fox News bullshit.

happy jack wrote:

My life would be so much simpler if I too was allowed to rewrite laws at will.
Maybe if I had a phone .... and a pen ....

Hey no shit, you mean just like George did, right?

Quote :

Fox News' ACA Delay Freakout Ignores History

With pressure mounting to extend next Monday's enrollment deadline for the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the Bush administration took another small step in that direction Tuesday, waiving penalty fees for very low-income seniors and people with disabilities who sign up late.

The move follows a recent administration decision to allow the same impoverished beneficiaries to sign up for Medicare drug coverage until Dec. 31. [McClatchy, 5/9/06]

http://mediamatters.org/research/2014/03/26/fox-news-aca-delay-freakout-ignores-history/198627

I guess it just comes down to the question of:
If it was no problem in 2006, why are conservatives bitching, moaning and crying now?

Artie60438 wrote:

dumbest troll on the internet wrote:

And no, I am not one of those “unsuspecting Americans”. I suspected from the beginning that Obamacare was going to suck the big one.

I happily predict that Obamcare will reach it's goal of 6,000,000 signups on Saturday and finish the month of March at 6.25 million or more.     

As this “unsuspecting American” predicted  
Obamacare sign-ups now exceed 6 million

Quote :

More than 6 million Americans have signed up for private health insurance under the ­Affordable Care Act, the White House announced Thursday, ­reflecting a surge in enrollment after months of technical problems prevented many people from picking a plan.

dim bulb wrote:

And no, I am not one of those “unsuspecting Americans”. I suspected from the beginning that Obamacare was going to suck the big one.

AP Sources: Health Law Sign-Ups on Track to Hit 7M

Quote :

Beating expectations, President Barack Obama's health care overhaul was on track to sign up more than 7 million Americans for health insurance on deadline day Monday, government officials told The Associated Press.

The 7 million target, thought to be out of reach by most experts, was in sight on a day that saw surging consumer interest as well as vexing computer glitches that slowed sign-ups on the HealthCare.gov website.

Two government officials confirmed the milestone, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter ahead of an official announcement.

Seven million was the original target set by the Congressional Budget Office for enrollment in taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance through new online markets created under Obama's signature legislation.

That was scaled back to 6 million after the disastrous launch of HealthCare.gov last fall. Several state-run websites also had crippling problems.

Naturally when the meat puppets at Fake News got the news they,as usual, had their own special way of reporting it  
Dishonest Fox Charts: Obamacare Enrollment Edition

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Fox News showed a dramatically skewed chart to suggest enrollment for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would come up far short of the initial estimate of 7 million enrollees.

On March 27, health insurance enrollment through the ACA's exchanges surpassed 6 million, exceeding the revised estimate of enrollees for the program's first year before the March 31 open enrollment deadline. Enrollment appears on track to hit the Congressional Budget Office's initial estimate of 7 million sign-ups, and taking Medicaid enrollees into account, the ACA will have reportedly extended health care coverage to at least 9.5 million previously uninsured individuals.

Fox celebrated the final day of open enrollment by attempting to somehow twist the recent enrollment surge into bad news for the law.

America's Newsroom aired an extremely skewed bar chart which made it appear that the 6 million enrollees comprised roughly one-third of the 7 million enrollee goal:

I'm sure in the coming days they'll be screaming that the books were cooked and we're being lied to.
Heck,maybe they'll even invent their own numbers like they did in 2012 to make it look as if Mittens would be elected. 
Anyway you slice it,listening to hate radio the next few days will be hilarious.  

The Obamacare "death spiral" according to the GOP, conservatives and Fox News clowns.
These idiots are hilarious.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AHlGBLZndw

Remarks start at 10:45

How dare Obama stand up there,take credit,spike the football,and do a victory lap.  
Damn you Obama!  

Fake News even covered the whole thing.   Immediately afterword meat puppet Neil Cavuto remarked "we don't know how many of these people had healthcare already  

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.”

Girl can’t help it.

http://www.democraticleader.gov/Transcript_of_Pelosi_Press_Stakeout_White_House_ACA

Transcript of Pelosi Press Stakeout Following Meeting at the White HouseApril 1, 2014

………

It's just really, really so heartwarming for those of us who worked so hard so that many more people in our country would have access to affordable, quality health care.  There are those who are critics, and there have been bumps in the road.  But they have only been turbulence.  They have not been an obstacle to the American people having a healthier life – what our Founders wanted for them: life, a healthier life; liberty; and the freedom to pursue their happiness, not job locked, but having benefits, health care policies, that are portable.  
………


Yup, that's exactly what our Founders wanted, hence the famous quote:

"Give me portable health care policies, or give me death! (Oh, yeah - and don't job-lock me.)"


Not for nothing is she considered by many to be one of the stupidest women ever to set foot in the Capitol.

troll wrote:

And no, I am not one of those “unsuspecting Americans”. I suspected from the beginning that Obamacare was going to suck the big one.

Uninsured Rate Falls To Lowest Since 2008: Gallup
WASHINGTON (AP) — A major new survey finds that a growing percentage of Americans gained health insurance as the initial sign-up season for President Barack Obama's health care law drew to a close last month.

Released Monday, the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index measured the share of adults without health insurance. That shrank from 17.1 percent at the end of last year to 15.6 percent for the first three months of 2014.

Quote :

The decline of 1.5 percentage points would translate roughly to more than 3.5 million people gaining coverage. The trend accelerated as the March 31 enrollment deadline loomed.

"The Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as 'Obamacare,' appears to be accomplishing its goal of increasing the percentage of Americans with health insurance," said Gallup's analysis of the findings.

Hilarious desperation from a GOP donor  

Meanwhile,even the Wall St Journal is telling these idiots to back off...
WSJ Editors To Conservatives: Stop Acting Crazy Over Obamacare

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The Wall Street Journal editorial board criticized conservative lawmakers who are angry with House GOP leaders for passing a small tweak to Obamacare that repeals a cap on deductibles for small-group insurance plans.

"In a rational world beating White House industrial policy and allowing more consumer choice would qualify as a modest conservative victory. But some Republicans have convinced themselves that the only tolerable change to ObamaCare is to make it worse," read the piece published Monday evening by the Journal's editorial team, a bastion of pro-business conservative thought.

Some GOP lawmakers are upset because Republican leaders tucked the provision in the recent Medicare physician payment fix, which they passed by an unrecorded voice vote. It passed the Senate and was signed into law. Some conservatives want nothing less than full repeal, preferring that Obamacare's pain be felt broadly so as to boost demand for wiping out the law.

The Journal's editors -- who stress that they "support repealing ObamaCare as much as anyone" -- say the law won't be scrapped while President Barack Obama is in office.

"[S]ome conservatives have become so politically disoriented by ObamaCare that preserving its mistakes is more important than helping Americans hurt by the law," they wrote. "The theory seems to be that 'improving' ObamaCare will weaken the coalition for repeal and therefore the economic torture dials should be turned up to 11. If the law is more punitive and dysfunctional, more people will want to get rid of it in toto."

The now-repealed Obamacare provision imposed a deductible cap of $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families in small group insurance policies in and out of the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Business groups complained that the cap limited choices.

The Journal editorial comes as several conservative wonks warn that Obamacare probably won't collapse on its own, and that repealing the law is impractical unless Republicans coalesce around a replacement plan.

Oh,and last but not least even more "unsuspecting Americans" may have benefited.  
Obamacare Might Be Covering Way More People Than Previously Thought

Quote :

A study released Tuesday blows the door wide open in the never-ending parlor game to estimate how many uninsured Americans have gotten health coverage under Obamacare, suggesting that the number might be bigger than previously thought.

But at this point, nobody is quite sure what to make of it.

RAND Corp, a non-profit think tank, released the survey. Its eye-opening finding: 7.2 million previously uninsured people have gained health coverage through their employer since mid-September. That's on top of those people who have purchased private coverage on Obamacare's insurance marketplaces or enrolled in Medicaid or young adults who signed up through their parents' plan.

Those three groups were the only people that many previous estimates of Obamacare's impact had accounted for.

In other words, if you take the earlier estimates of 8.3 million to 9.5 million uninsured people who had gotten covered by marketplace plans, Medicaid and their parents' policies -- and then add some of the millions more who RAND found had gotten insured through their employer -- then Obamacare could be responsible for reducing America's uninsured ranks much more than the earlier estimates suggested.

"I think that’s fair," Larry Levitt, vice president of the non-profit, non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, told TPM when asked if that was one of the study's implications. "Some of it could be improvements in the economy, which might have happened regardless of the Affordable Care Act.

Suspecting doofus wrote:

And no, I am not one of those “unsuspecting Americans”. I suspected from the beginning that Obamacare was going to suck the big one.

CBO Lowers Obamacare's Price Tag By $104 Billion Over 10 Years

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In it's latest projections for Obamacare, the Congressional Budget Office has lowered the law's costs over the next 10 years by more than $100 billion.

Most of the change can be linked to lower spending on tax subsidies for coverage purchased on HealthCare.gov and its state counterparts, which can in turn be linked to lower-than-expected premiums.

CBO projected that the federal government would spend $164 billion less than previously expected on Obamacare subsidies by 2024. It appears that a number of factors contributed to that change. Premiums, especially in the near term, are expected to be lower than previously projected: The office estimated premiums would rise on average by about $100 in 2015. They are still expected to rise over the next decade, but at a lower rate than previously thought.

It's a combination of rising medical costs, a healthier enrollment population in 2015 and the make-up of the Obamacare plans, which have narrower provider networks and lower provider payments than their counterparts in the large-group market, that contribute to the CBO's calculations on premiums. Other changes, such as a smaller under-65 population, also factored into the revisions.

The savings on subsidies are somewhat offset by other revisions by CBO, including fewer individual mandate penalty payments and an estimated increase in the number of active workers with employer-based coverage (about 1 million per year), which decreases expected federal revenues.

The net effect is that the law is projected to cost $104 billion less over 10 years than CBO's most recent estimate in February 2014.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/11/us/politics/sebelius-resigning-as-health-secretary.html?_r=0

Sebelius Resigns After Troubles Over Health Site


“If you like your cabinet position, you can keep your cabinet position.”

- Barack Obama

Or something like that.

Fox News outraged that all the people it told not to buy insurance can't get insurance until fall

Quote :

Brian Beutler catches the latest Obamacare fauxrage from Fox News: millions of people won't be able to sign up for health insurance until November. So all those young people who Republicans, and Fox News, told that they shouldn't be signing up because freedom are now deprived of freedom by having to wait until the next open enrollment period. Here's Fox News:

Quote :

   There is yet another ObamaCare surprise waiting for consumers: from now until the next open enrollment at the end of this year, most people will simply not be able to buy any health insurance at all, even outside the exchanges.

That's not really news. The practice of enrollment periods, embraced by the law, was designed specifically to address those "free-riders" Fox News would in any other circumstance hate—the people who would wait until they needed health insurance to get it. The difference now, though, is that if those people get sick while they're uninsured, they don't have to worry about that preventing them from getting insurance once open enrollment kicks in again. (There are some exceptions: people who qualify can enroll in Medicaid or enroll their kids in SCHIP programs at any time, and people who have "qualifying life events" or other special circumstances as detailed here can sign up.)

But of course, Fox News doesn't really care about all the people it told not to sign up who didn't sign up and now don't have care. Nor do they care that they're showing their rank hypocrisy in pushing this story. Just as long as they have some Obamacare outrage story.

And now back to BENGHAZI! 

Suspicious doofus wrote:

And no, I am not one of those “unsuspecting Americans”. I suspected from the beginning that Obamacare was going to suck the big one.

Obamacare helped nearly 10 million get insurance, Gallup finds

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Obamacare has helped nearly 10 million people to get new health insurance, and more than 4 percent of all Americans have gotten health insurance for the first time, according to a new Gallup poll.

It's the largest poll yet to assess the effects of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, and the findings add to what's been reported in earlier surveys and the government tally of how many people signed up through the new online exchanges.

The percentage of the U.S. population that has no health insurance has plummeted from an all-time high of 18 percent during the last quarter of 2013 to just 15 percent this past March, says Dan Witters, lead researcher for the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index.

Damn you Obama!   

Yamhead wrote:

And no, I am not one of those “unsuspecting Americans”. I suspected from the beginning that Obamacare was going to suck the big one.

Polls Show Rising Acceptance for Obamacare

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In February, one Florida restaurant chain—Gator’s Dockside -- made headlines for slapping a one percent “Obamacare surcharge” on customers’ bills. The chain’s owners said the surcharge was necessary to offset the new costs associated with the Affordable Care Act.

Under the law, businesses with 50 or more full-time employees will be required to provide health coverage for their employees by 2015 or pay a penalty for each worker.

CBO Says Obamacare Will Cost Less Than Projected

Many major companies say the new expenses will likely be passed onto the consumer—though presumably in a more-subtle manner than Gator’s Dockside’s approach.

Though the Florida restaurant’s owners said the move to add Obamacare on every receipt was not political, the story played into the GOP’s message that Obamacare could have a harmful effect on businesses and consumers.

As it turns out, the majority of Americans say they are okay with businesses adding a nominal surcharge to each bill in order to help pay for their employees health coverage.

That’s according to a new survey from Bankrate.com, which found that 68 percent of those polled say they don’t mind paying a higher bill so businesses can provide their workers with insurance. Younger people especially seemed to approve of this approach—about 64 percent of 18-29 year olds, while only 39 percent of people 65 and older said they were okay with this practice.

“While most Americans may be able to swallow an extra 25 cents on their bill at their favorite restaurant, a sizable chunk (22 percent) said they would stop going to the business. I can only imagine this number increasing if businesses try to charge too much,” Bankrate.com insurance analyst Doug Whiteman said in a statement.

Still, for the time being, the survey’s findings are more good news for the White House—which has enjoyed a slew of recent polls suggesting that the public’s perception of the ACA is beginning to improve.

Just last week, The New York Times and the Kaiser Family Foundation released a poll showing that the majority of people in Republican-dominated southern states said they favor keeping the law and making fixes to it, rather than repealing it.

An ABC News/ Washington Post poll shows support for the law has crept up to 49 percent-- its highest level since the troubled rollout last fall, when just 40 percent approved of the law. The law’s popularity has surged along with enrollment in the health exchanges—which topped 8 million as of April 15.

Artie60438 wrote:

Polls Show Rising Acceptance for Obamacare

No surprise there.  Everyone knows someone with a bankruptcy-inducing pre-existing condition who now has insurance.  The GOP knew it would be popular, which is why they floated it around for a bit quite a few years ago (and why Romney did it).  

I think the Dems really need to push hard for it.  It's taken a remarkably disproportionate beating in the press.  None of the doom and gloom scenarios the GOP has promised would happen actually have.  All of their sob stories were anything but.  Instead, it's followed the projected data pretty well.  They really need to use that.

Heretic wrote:

I think the Dems really need to push hard for it.  It's taken a remarkably disproportionate beating in the press.  None of the doom and gloom scenarios the GOP has promised would happen actually have.  All of their sob stories were anything but.  Instead, it's followed the projected data pretty well.  They really need to use that.

Yep. To this very day the GOP still has no alternative plan. Running on repealing Obamacare might work in ignorant,die-hard wingnut districts like Louie Gohmert's but in mainstream and swing districts it becomes a hell of a lot harder to explain why you're in favor of taking away heathcare from those who now have it and denying it from those that don't.

2 of the smartest Democrats I can think of are both in favor of running on it.   That would be Former Gov,Dr Howard Dean,and the explainer-in-chief President Bill Clinton  He's already pushing hard on it in Michigan.

Here's a fresh article showing how repeal& replace is losing support....Obamacare Repeal Loses Support In Republican Districts (CHARTS)

Here's what happens on Fox when Obamacare succeeds

Throw in Cliven Bundy and you have...

Quote :

Of course, Bundy imploded, and Benghazi has repeatedly been proven to be a political loser, so here's a question for Fox: What will be next?

Pretty much the same story on Hate radio ....back to Benghazi. In the end this will just make Hillary stronger. Americans have a short attention span. Benghazi didn't work in 2014,"Please proceed Governor" and it's not going to get traction in 2014. Anything to distract from the most recent jobs report +228,000.

Facts can’t cure Obamacare Derangement Syndrome

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House Republicans, you will recall, recently released a report claiming only 67 percent of enrollees had paid their Obamacare premiums. This was widely hyped by the law’s opponents: All these claims that the law is on track just have to be cooked! But the insurers themselves are set to testify today that here in the real world, 80-90 percent of people have paid:

Quote :

As many as 90 percent of WellPoint customers have paid their first premium by its due date, according to testimony the company prepared for a congressional hearing today. For Aetna, the payment is in the “low to mid-80 percent range,” the company said in its own testimony. Health Care Service Corp., which operates Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in five states including Texas, said that number is at least 83 percent. [...]

Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee invited insurers to testify on enrollment after publishing a report last week claiming only two-thirds of people who signed up had paid their first premium.

“That was just foolishness on the part of the committee to even publish that number because it was completely out of context,” Bob Laszewski, an insurance industry consultant in Alexandria, Virginia, said in a phone interview.

That last quote is interesting, because Laszewski is an Obamacare skeptic, yet he’s charging Republicans with “foolishness” for trying to make a political point with the 67 percent number (it only tallied up payments through April 15th).

. . .

By the way, Republicans are raising an absolutely legitimate point when they ask what percentage of people have paid premiums. Because it’s true that the enrollment numbers by themselves don’t tell us too much. Not only is there the total who paid; the sign-up numbers also don’t tell us much about the law’s long term prospects, which turn on the demographic mix and the success of the individual exchanges. They also don’t tell us how many people previously had insurance; various metrics suggest the ranks of the uninsured are shrinking, but we simply cannot know yet by how much. And some uncertainty remains about the industry’s latest payment-rate claims, too.

But the point is that many Obamacare proponents acknowledge these uncertainties. And they acknowledge that some people are getting harmed by the law; they just argue that the trade-offs are worth it. By contrast, as Jonathan Cohn details, ACA opponents frequently don’t bother engaging with empirical evidence that it may be working (how many will engage with today’s insurance industry testimony?) or that it may be helping lots of people. Many foes remain in thrall to an October 2013 storyline — the emotional pull of that glorious moment of Obamacare reckoning last fall apparently remains very powerful — in which the law’s only impact has been to create an enormous victim class.

happy jack wrote:

 And no, I am not one of those “unsuspecting Americans”. I suspected from the beginning that Obamacare was going to suck the big one.

You betcha

Republicans Who Signed Up For Obamacare This Year Are Pretty Happy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/10/republicans-health-insurance_n_5574079.html

house troll wrote:

 And no, I am not one of those “unsuspecting Americans”. I suspected from the beginning that Obamacare was going to suck the big one.

More GOP-Led States Are Moving To Expand Medicaid

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A successful first open enrollment period with 8 million enrollees. The uninsured rate at a record low 13.4 percent. Insurers clamoring to join state exchanges for next year. Health insurance premiums for 2015 beating expectations. The successes of the Affordable Care Act are clear.

Supporters of the law in competitive races have taken notice, and are increasingly running on, not from, the ACA. But they are not the only ones acknowledging the changing political landscape; the ACA’s opponents have also seen it, and are taking action. In particular, some GOP-led states who have been putting politics over people by opposing Medicaid expansion are now taking steps to accept it. Here are some of the latest to change their tune:

   Pennsylvania: The Keystone State will become the 27th state, and the 12th Republican-led state, to expand its Medicaid program in accordance with the Affordable Care Act. The Obama Administration announced last Thursday that it had granted a waiver and reached agreement with the state to provide health care coverage to 500,000 low-income residents through private insurance. Gov. Tom Corbett (R), the deeply unpopular Pennsylvania governor, has previously fought against expansion but trails in his re-election bid by 25 points while 59 percent of voters support expanding Medicaid.

   Tennessee: Gov. Bill Haslem indicated late last week that the state will likely submit a Medicaid expansion plan this soon. “I think we’ll probably go to [the Obama Administration] sometime this fall with a plan … that we think makes sense for Tennessee,” Haslem said. While he did not comment on any further details, the move could mean health coverage for 162,000 Tennesseans.

   Wyoming: After initially rejecting Medicaid expansion that would provide health insurance to 17,600 low-income Wyoming residents, Gov. Matt Mead has now said he is now in negotiations with the Obama Administration to find a way to expand the program next year. The LA Times reports that “the reason for Wyoming’s wavering is clear: It’s money.” The state stands to save $50 million per year by expanding. Meanwhile, Wyoming hospitals are losing $200 million per year by treating people who lack insurance.

Another thing for these states, and all other conservative-led states who continue to deny health care to their low-income residents, to consider: they are sending hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to other states who are expanding Medicaid, and receiving nothing in return.

BOTTOM LINE: As candidates who support the ACA increasingly embrace it on the campaign trail, conservatives nationwide are downplaying their opposition to the law. In the latest sign, more conservative states are finally changing course by pushing forward with Medicaid expansion to provide health care to hundreds of thousands of low-income working people and save billions of dollars.

"If you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in -- if you made it explicit that healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed. ... Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass."


Jonathan Gruber