Obamacare enters Death Spiral

[BvBPL]

Which penalties would you increase?

 

[El_Machinae]

This is partially a symptom of a major problem in the American Healthcare system. They're usually allowed to mark up their prices from a certain percentage from 'costs'. And so, they're actually motivated to have high costs, 'cause that's how they generate higher profits.

 

[Lexicus]

Who does that?

Everyone who's against "socialized medicine?"

 

[onejayhawk]

Everyone who's against "socialized medicine?"

Why not say, everyone that foots the bill?

ACA is an unfolding disaster--by design. Notice the unreasonably long implementation periods. It was designed to last to just after the election. There was never a serious attempt to make it work. Instead, we had a situation comedy about the roll out, the enrollments, the federal funding, the revelations of fabricated numbers, and so on. The idea was to replace it with single payer in the next Congress. Good luck with that.

J

 

[FriendlyFire]

Why not say, everyone that foots the bill?

ACA is an unfolding disaster--by design. Notice the unreasonably long implementation periods. It was designed to last to just after the election. There was never a serious attempt to make it work. Instead, we had a situation comedy about the roll out, the enrollments, the federal funding, the revelations of fabricated numbers, and so on. The idea was to replace it with single payer in the next Congress. Good luck with that.

J

Thanks Obama

 

[Lexicus]

Why not say, everyone that foots the bill?

To work, any health insurance system must find a way to induce the healthy to subsidize the sick. What system accomplishes that most efficiently?

 

[El_Machinae]

"Efficient" is waaaaaay too loose a word haha. I mean, there're oodles of answers. Depending on what you mean by efficient.

 

[Lexicus]

At the lowest cost, with the highest minimum level of care available to the largest number of people.

 

[FriendlyFire]

At the lowest cost, with the highest minimum level of care available to the largest number of people.

What wrong with Death Panels ?
Or the current Republican plan of Die Quickly ?

 

[schlaufuchs]

The problems with Obamacare are easy to fix. Just increase the penalties until all the healthy people decide to sign up. Or make the penalty be about the average cost of a bronze plan and then buy them the plan. In the long run it likely wouldn't be more expensive than subsidizing ever-rising premiums.

Or simply make it so that health insurance companies have to take losses on Obamacare to keep premiums down. It's not like they lose money overall, Obamacare typically shakes out to a relatively small portion of their business.

Or just create a public option that offers the minimum mandated plan at a fixed cost. It still baffles me that a public option wasn't included in the original bill as-passed. I mean I suppose that's essentially what the medicare expansion was supposed to be. But c'mon, expecting Republican governors to opt-in to free money was kind of wishful thinking, wasn't it?

 

[metalhead]

The bill as passed imposed heavy financial consequences on states which did not expand Medicaid. That part of the law was struck down by the Supreme Court, finding that the government was not allowed to use a power that they have been explicitly permitted by Supreme Court precedent to use since the founding of the Republic, apparently because they were too heavy-handed about it. Or something. It can be hard to figure out sometimes because conservative judicial reasoning is about as logical as conservative reasoning generally. But the point is, the bill as passed was intended to force the states to take the Medicaid expansion. Activist judges decided to legislate from the bench and remove that provision from it.

 

[El_Machinae]

Our public option services are delivered by the provinces. You'll want hand-in-glove cooperation between the Feds and the States

 

[Kaitzilla]

Ok, so here are the Obamacare Premiums that a 40 year old non-smoker (Making $30,000 per year) paid in all 50 states over the course of the last 4 years.
Data is drawn from Kaiser here, here, and here.

**Edit**
Note: This is a table of premiums paid by people of a certain age who don't smoke!
They might see a +5%, 1 year rate hike in 2017 in California, but the blended average rate increase with all the ages, incomes, bronze/silver/gold plans, etc. included is +13% in 2017 in California.
http://acasignups.net/16/10/28/avg-unsubsidized-indy-mkt-rate-hikes-25-49-states-dc



Bravo to California for having the 5th lowest premium prices in 2017, and the most steady price too!
Ohio is also a standout with lower prices every year and the lowest price in 2017 (tied with Kentucky).

Note that Obamacare is paying for almost the entire 25% price increase next year. (For the $30,000 per year people with no? kids)
Printed money for the win!

 

[El_Machinae]

Keep in mind, most other countries are able to afford medical care for our poor. So, while the ACA is a cost on the budget, everyone else has been able to handle that cost.

Those after-tax numbers aren't so bad. But those before tax numbers remind me what a bull I am for deflation in this industry.