The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

[burd]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

(In 2014) The lowest monthly silver premium in the country is offered in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, where a 40-year-old will pay $154 a month for a PreferredOne plan. Just across the Wisconsin border, that same level plan — but with a different insurer and other doctors and hospitals — costs nearly three times as much.

How are they gonna charge full rates west of the St. Croix? Nobody would be able to pay.

The rates are also skewed by the fact that so many demented and diseased Minnesotans think they are "just fine." Look no further that this forum for proof of that.

[Rover]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

I've written both my Senators about this debacle of a law. Especially for the Middle Class who always takes everything in the ***.

I'd love for you to share that letter with us. The over/under on references to conspiracy theories must be a dozen, and that's assuming your letter was only one page long.

[Slap Shot]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

How are they gonna charge full rates west of the St. Croix? Nobody would be able to pay.

The rates are also skewed by the fact that so many demented and diseased Minnesotans think they are "just fine." Look no further that this forum for proof of that.

If you equate "just fine" with "we are better than you always" ok.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

If you equate "just fine" with "we are better than you always" ok.

I'd say that's the definition of narcissistic personality disorder! If Martin Skhreli, BS can diagnose Hillary with Parkinson's just by observation, I would say Fade, MS can make that call, and it's got more weight.

[brookyone]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

(In 2014) The lowest monthly silver premium in the country is offered in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, where a 40-year-old will pay $154 a month for a PreferredOne plan. Just across the Wisconsin border, that same level plan — but with a different insurer and other doctors and hospitals — costs nearly three times as much.

Well, on the correct side of the St. Croix we don't stick our arms in the wood chipper to see what happens...like so many of my western Wisconsin friends like to do after a couple Leinenkugels.

[LynahFan]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

Scoobs can't see your link but Obama claimed premiums would be $2,500 lower than they would have been had the law not been enacted, not that you'd be paying $2,500 less than before. For someone who's a supposed liberal you sure do parrot conservative talking points a lot.

Uh-huh. He sure forgot to be explicit about that if that's what he really meant. Classic bait-and-switch.

[St. Clown]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

Uh-huh. He sure forgot to be explicit about that if that's what he really meant. Classic bait-and-switch.

Yeah, the president and his party sold it as an immediate reduction in overall premiums paid once the benefits began to kick in AND a downward bend in the future premium rate increases.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

What do you know, a company is using bureaucracies about health created over the past 125 years to create a monopoly on an emergency injector. And yet, a bunch of you wackos want to put your entire trust with health and well-being decisions into these same bureaucracies...

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

I have determined based on my own experience and what I have read and all the insurance companies that are bowing out that all this law was in the long run was a middle class tax increase to help pay for the poor and uninsured.

[St. Clown]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

I have determined based on my own experience and what I have read and all the insurance companies that are bowing out that all this law was in the long run was a middle class tax increase to help pay for the poor and uninsured.

You didn't see that from the start? Now ask the younger generation (just older than 26 when the law passed) how they feel about the older generations' situation in this law, about how the young had their premiums jacked up while the old had theirs reduced - at least initially, then they went up with everyone else's.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

You didn't see that from the start? Now ask the younger generation (just older than 26 when the law passed) how they feel about the older generations' situation in this law, about how the young had their premiums jacked up while the old had theirs reduced - at least initially, then they went up with everyone else's.

To be honest I was apprehensively supportive and hopeful they would find some savings. I wasn't wrong, but it sure did turn out worst case scenario which I didn't think would happen. So, I was foolish.

[FreshFish]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

You didn't see that from the start? Now ask the younger generation (just older than 26 when the law passed) how they feel about the older generations' situation in this law, about how the young had their premiums jacked up while the old had theirs reduced - at least initially, then they went up with everyone else's.

the underling math mandated by the law is inherently unstable; mathematics alone (any and all political opinions extracted) predicted this outcome.

There are three major, interlocking elements involved:
-- coverage levels
-- risk assessment
-- loss ratios.

These three are intrinsically interwined on a fundamental level: in the long run, you can set any two of these three and then the third must rise or fall to its own level¹.

The law specifies all three of these elements as if each one of them could be separately locked into place by statute. that is mathematically impossible to sustain².

There is an apocryphal story about a state legislature that wanted to change the value of pi by statute. PPACA is exactly the same except more subtle to discern.






¹ Similar to PV=nrT for gas laws; you can set any two of P, V, or T but eventually the third will necessarily find its own level in relation to the other two.
² Technically, you could resign yourself always to run the plan at a loss; but then where does that money come from? a technical exception with no real value.

[FlagDUDE08]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

You didn't see that from the start? Now ask the younger generation (just older than 26 when the law passed) how they feel about the older generations' situation in this law, about how the young had their premiums jacked up while the old had theirs reduced - at least initially, then they went up with everyone else's.

Aren't the old forced into the Medicare system (at least to be eligible to receive Social Security)?

[St. Clown]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

Aren't the old forced into the Medicare system (at least to be eligible to receive Social Security)?

Yes, I believe they are. But there's still that segment of the population with a higher healthcare risks who are older yet not quite of Medicare age. They're much more expensive to insure than a 27yo man, if you're to ask an insurance actuary.

[SJHovey]

Re: The PPACA Thread Part III - Let's have a healthy debate!

I have determined based on my own experience and what I have read and all the insurance companies that are bowing out that all this law was in the long run was a middle class tax increase to help pay for the poor and uninsured.

In a nutshell, here is the problem with the ACA.

For that segment of the population on Medicare, the ACA had no impact.

For that segment of the population who were covered by employer sponsored plans, the ACA has had virtually no impact. So all employees of relatively large employers and all public employees have seen no changes.

For the tiny fraction of the population who was a) uninsured, b) poor enough to be eligible for significant subsidies, and c) actually went out and followed the law and got themselves enrolled, there has been a positive impact. They are now insured, and a lot of it is subsidized by the government. So it looks great for them now, but their day is coming. The costs will go up, the subsidies will drop, and candidly they'll simply go back to being uninsured.

For everybody else, bend over because your buddy Obama has a present that's going to keep on giving. If you're self employed, or if you work for a small employer who doesn't provide insurance, if you're one of those countless numbers of people sitting out there making $40,000 a year and trying to live the dream, you are looking at a diminishing number of insurers from whom you can buy coverage and whopping premium increases.

But, don't worry. Rover continues to give us his best Wallace Hartley imitation and says everything is great.