In Republican-Led States, Obamacare Subsidies Are More Common
In states run by Republican governors, a greater percentage of people get support from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to buy insurance, via subsidies created by the law, than in Democrat-run states. Yet they're always the ones who are opposed to it?! Why do people keep voting for them!?
Good question..I have often wondered myself!!!
….because they have correctly pointed out that so much of the ACA is, shall we say, not so cool.
Also, just because a state has a GOP governor, doesn't make it a 'GOP State'. (i.e. New Jersey is the Bluest State outside of Massachusetts. I should know, I live there). See, making the stats say what you want is real easy.
So Christie wasn't elected by the people of New Jersey?
New Jersey aside… historically, those identified as red states take more, it's been shown over and over again.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2014/03/27/which-states-take-the-most-from-the-u-s-government/
http://www.businessinsider.com/red-states-are-welfare-queens-2011-8
Having said that… the reddest states on that map (ex: Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, New Mexico) have very high poverty rates and thus receive disproportionately large shares of federal dollars. It makes sense they should get more, what doesn't make sense is the people they continue to elect are the ones who continue to rail against anything "social" despite the fact they receive those benefits. It's a carefully crafted narrative I'll give them that.
The people did elect him, still doesn't mean that everything else in this state isn't Democrat (run, controlled, and been that way for my entire life). Plus, I'm starting to wonder about Christie.
Now the states you mentioned, Mississippi is heavily Blue in the western half of the state (congressional representation wise), Alabama is split into two sections of red by a solid blue belt across the middle of the state, and New Mexico is at best, a purple state (again, congressional representation wise). The only one that's solid red is Louisiana (except, I believe, New Orleans).
So like I said, a Red governor does not a red state make. I will say that those states are economically poorer that most, so it would stand to reason that no matter who is pulling the strings in the state, it's going to have a high percentage of subsidy needs, so we agree there.
Given there are only 18 Democrat governors, this is not surprising. Also, usage of subsidies points to a problem with Obamacare, its sky high premiums. Only through subsidies can insurance begin to be somewhat palatable. But, I generally agree with the article. The subsidies are out of hand, and Obamacare, a wealth redistribution program, should end.
So let's end the subsidies.
+Kyle Miller This isn't an issue with the ACA… Health care works nothing like other free-market transactions. As a consumer, you are a bystander to the real action, which takes place between providers—hospitals, doctors, labs, drug companies, and device manufacturers—and the private and governmental entities that pay them. Guess which entity gets the best prices? MEDICARE? Know why? That agency is by far the largest single source of revenue for most health care providers, which gives it more leverage to set prices. If the ACA hadn't been gutted in the first place and citizens would have been allowed to group themselves into a large government group, we would have been able to exert downward pressure on pricing. Everybody had a hissy fit over that though… the news throwing around "socialist" like it's a 4-letter-word. A 2013 Commonwealth Fund study (http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror) of 11 developed countries’ health care systems, the U.S. ranked fifth in quality and worst for infant mortality. We also did the worst job of preventing deaths from treatable conditions, such as strokes, diabetes, high blood pressure, and certain treatable cancers.
"Obamacare" shouldn't end… it should be expanded to break the stranglehold the medical-insurance system has on Americans.
Moar here: http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/11/it-is-time-to-get-mad-about-the-outrageous-cost-of-health-care/index.htm
+Paul Spoerry Healthcare in America is not a free market. It is heavily regulated and controlled by the government. Believing inserting a layer of government bureaucracy and money into the healthcare system leads to lower costs is an exercise in foolishness. Government is responsible for higher healthcare costs, not insurers.
You can blame the doctors all you want for the litany of ailments you list, but most of the responsibility belongs ultimately with the individual. Besides, we were promised all those ailments would be greatly lessened due to Obamacare and the lower access to preventive care. What happened? Over promise, under deliver.
Obamacare compromised people's healthcare by manipulating a market and modifying compensation. Many people lost their doctors despite Obama promising you could keep him or her. Between this and higher premiums and deductibles, Obamacare is making more people unhealthy because they're less likely to be able to participate as they wish in healthcare.
Even in your own post, you blame it on 2 things:
1) Insurance
2) Providers
Which is it? Why isn't the government in your list?
http://www.floppingaces.net/2015/05/31/the-obamacare-hell-that-awaits-you/
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/05/how-affordable-is-the-affordable-care-act-118428.html
Go Paul……
Since we're talking about the ACA, I was interested to hear what everyone thought about the latest with our Congress. It seems that they have decided that the Congress is a 'small business' and therefore exempt from the ACA. Here's a video the tells what they pulled (and I know it's from a right-wing channel, but they are hard on both sides of the aisle in this one, so just ignore any political jabs you might find as BS, and just listen to what our Congress did to pull this betrayal on those who put them there).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enK7-d1Vu_Q
So what?
Without Obamacare we wouldn't need subsidies.
The system was set to force prices up by requiring every policy to cover things that some people do not want or need such as maternity care and also covering preexisting conditions. Young healthy people chose to sit out and pay the penalty leaving insurance companies in a position of having to raise prices to cover the added cost to them. That was intentional so that the government could come to the rescue by providing a subsidy to the 85%. The 85% would then become dependent on those politicians who fight for their subsidies. When those subsidies grow out of control it will be time to get the 85% to support more taxes on the rich or the government taking over the insurance industry and making it single payor for more redistribution of wealth. If you can't see that writing on the wall you are not very bright.
+John Landry As a business person for decades, as someone who knows hundreds of other self employed or business people, let me explain a thing or two.
The reason some people in the private sectors rates went up is because insurance companies were selling plans that did not cover simple things that common folks would expect when buy insurance. It had nothing to do with maternity or other issues.
Everyone in the private market place, including small companies, have to renegotiate their insurance every year.
Unless you could afford to take three lawyers with you to sign documents you had no idea if you were actually covered if you got hit by a bus until you were in the emergency room and your insurance was rejected because you did not call before you got hit. This happened all the time. Co-workers seven year old breaks his arm, not covered, "setting arms is an experimental treatment", I kid you not. "Should have read page 43, section 4, subsection 32". A passage a judge could make no sense of.
Me, and millions like me were listed as having pre-existing conditions. Once listed you cannot get unlisted and every insurance company has the information. I got listed in 2004 after having my first claim in decades. I always carried a four to five thousand deductibles so I never had claims because I never have anything wrong. I still don't have any idea what my pre-existing condition is except that I live in the most backwards industrial nation on earth, that puts making another buck for a handful of bankers way ahead of the people. And then subsidizes them to cheat their customers.
The insurance policies these people had were worthless except for a doctors visit or two. That is why 80% of the bankruptcies in this country are for medical reasons. People had insurance and then were refused treatments.
+Tim Counts
….and as the business owner who was providing the insurance for his employees it was your job to have a lawyer vet the policy your workers were relying on.
Also, who doesn't have their policy read over by someone before taking the coverage. It's obviously workers can't trust their boss to insure a policy that won't turn out to be worth no more than the paper it was printed on.
I know that when I had insurance, I knew what I was covered for how much the costs like co-pays were, and what kind of catastrophic coverage I had, etc. I couldn't afford to have surprises jumping out at me when my family's health was at stake.
+West Kagle What part of no laws and regulation do you not understand?
When insurance companies get two or three states to remove all litigation and laws for insurance companies, guess where they move their corporate headquarters too.
When you cannot hold them accountable for a contract in their corporate state you cannot sue them. The contract is worthless.
Do you have a clue how many judges refused to allow banks to reposes houses in 2008 / 09 because the contracts were so convoluted that they were "legal nonsense".
If my state AG cannot successfully sue the bankers how am I supposed to sue them. They would have me in court for decades before it got to a judge.
Why are you on the internet shilling for these welfare whores in the first place?
+Kyle Miller Um… do you not realize that there are both "insurance providers" as well as "health care providers"? And insurance provider provides you, or a company, blocks of coverage. A health care provider is a doctor, hospital, diagnostic service, etc.
"Government is responsible for higher healthcare costs, not insurers." That's so laughable I don't even know where to start.
I wasn't advocating <inserting> a government layer, I would propose getting rid of the private layer OR allowing people not covered by company provided insurance to group themselves into a government group. This groups soles purpose would be to put downward cost pressure on the providers. This has been proposed and is always fought by the providers… because why would they want someone to take away their cash crop? The reason that historically small businesses pay more, or individuals pay more, than those who are in a large corporate plan is that the large corporate plan has people acting on their behalf to push prices down and negotiate those large blocks of business with the providers. If not… they'd just price gauge everyone. You're notion that this was all some scheme to make people "dependent" on the government is not only historically inaccurate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States#History) but smacks of you getting all of your information from "Fox & Friends".
+West Kagle While on one hand I think you're right… we should read over and know what's in our insurance that's also a bit like saying everyone should understand their entire mortgage, that we should be able to legally defend ourselves in court without an attorney (possible… but probably extremely stupid to do so), etc. Take credit cards for example… when left to themselves they intentionally created practices and agreements that the average consumer could not understand. So much so that bipartisan support passed a law forcing them to be fair and transparent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_CARD_Act_of_2009). I'm in agreement that it's my responsibility to ensure my family is covered… I'm also fully aware that I have always had a large corporation leveraging on my behalf and that not everyone is capable of comprehending the insurance products. I just went through an open enrollment meeting with HR (yeah… oddly my company does open enrollment in the middle of summer unlike every place else I've ever worked). Someone was explaining to us what the products meant. There were soooooo many questions, many of which the person hosting the meeting had to have take-away questions to get back to us on. BTW… my company develops group and individual insurance software. So if the plans aren't written in a way that people who BUILD insurance software can understand… then I think it'd be fair to say there would be a large swath of our population that wouldn't comprehend it either.
+Tim Counts
When did I mention anything about laws? I was talking about actually knowing what was in a contract and understanding what you are getting in regards to said contract.
A contract is a contract, no matter what kind it is. If someone fails to live up to their end, they are in breach of contract and *then* we can talk about law, and how the insured has legal recourse.
I have never had an issue with a medical insurance company failing to live up to the terms of a contract. I have no idea what shyster insurance plan you've had before, but I might suggest that you get a different one.
…….and what does the housing market and bank loans have even the slightest bearing on what we were discussing??? Are you like a crazy person?? ¬_¬
+Paul Spoerry
I know what you're saying. I often forget that I am, for better or worse, a little compulsive/obsessive, and it would drive me nuts to not know *exactly* what I was signing, and am fortunate enough to have the mental capacity to comprehend what they have laid out. It's also why I'm often that friend that is the question answerer and end up reading stuff that I'm not even signing.
I also find it unacceptable that your company's medical insurance rep doesn't have a sufficient mastery of the subject they were sent to explain to you. I can understand being caught off guard by an unusual question ever now and again, but it sounds like you guys had about as much knowledge as they did already.
….and you know what really burns my arse? A flame about 2 and a half feet high. No really, I can't stand it when I have more knowledge then the 'teacher'.
+West Kagle You realize that insurance companies are investment banking firms that use premiums to back their "investments". They do not have great groups of doctors sitting on their boards.
Until Obamacare, states all over the nation had tried to sue them for breach of contract.
California had several million complaints to the insurance commissioner and the state AG.
They cannot be sued because the states they do business in have removed all laws for insurance companies and limited liability for insurance companies.
They used to be able to refuse you service for any reason they wanted. I, like millions of others, got listed as having a pre-existing condition in 2004. Rising my personal rate from $500.00 a month to $1800.00 a month.
I have no condition and that was the first claim I had filed in twenty years. I can name two dozen people with the same circumstance. Companies with large numbers could negotiate contracts and hold them to some of their promises. Folks that work for themselves or had fewer then 50 people had zero influence or ability to force them to pay up.
+Tim Counts
Again, a contract is a contract. Breach of contract is breach of contract. However it still goes back to my original assertion that you need to know what you're getting into when buying anything, especially health insurance.
I realize that insurance companies, like retirement policy companies, are investment businesses, and I don't care. I'm still not talking about suing my mortgage company.
…..and again, Maybe you need to look at the company you're dealing with. It sounds like you have had some sketchy insurance companies (that, and you come from that progressive insane asylum that is the state of California)
+West Kagle If you cannot sue them for breech of contract, it matters not what the contract says. You really need to start paying attention to what is going on in your country,
Google works for everyone.
+Tim Counts
The example you gave about the kid with the broken arm…….it wasn't a breach of contract since the insurance company, I'm sure, had it listed in their policy as 'experimental'. Again, you need to read what you sign.
……and I say again, maybe leave that nut house that is The Golden State.
+Paul Spoerry do you not realize that there are both "insurance providers" as well as "health care providers"?
Yes. And Obamacare distorts both. For the consumer, costs of A + B equals C, the total bill the end user pays.
I would propose getting rid of the private layer OR allowing people not covered by company provided insurance to group themselves into a government group
The problem is the private layer? I assume you mean insurance providers. Or, do you mean replace private insurance companies and healthcare providers with government insurance and government issued medical professionals? Worked well for USSR and North Korea.
A most assured way to destroy American healthcare is to governmentize it. You remove motivation and de-personalize it. What makes you think government could run any or all layers of healthcare financially more efficient? Fiscal responsibility and government is an oxymoron.
Why does it have to be a government group? Are people not free to associate and form private groups? There are many associations people could join to get group insurance. You don't need the government.
Why is the government always sought to save the day, as if it is some neutral party with nothing but our best interests at heart? They can and have been just as crooked and self-interested as the worst private institutions.
Of course, the government already acts as a representative for a large group of individuals via Medicare and Medicaid (http://www.chcf.org/publications/2014/07/data-viz-hcc-national), the largest compensators of healthcare coverage. They've applied pricing pressures as you suggest, and it results in worse healthcare. Costs are not under control.
And why is it when insurance providers apply cost pressures, they're evil and trying to compromise everyone's healthcare? But when government does it, it's because they truly care for the patient. Why the two standards?
because why would they want someone to take away their cash crop?
This is pure stereotype projection. What makes you think the government isn't itching to take over markets for the purposes of having absolute power? If you think the government is altruistic, think again.
And yes, I think any private business and citizen should be concerned when the government wants to tear down a business they have worked hard to create. It's not the purpose of government to destroy legal private commerce.
The reason that historically small businesses pay more, or individuals pay more, than those who are in a large corporate plan is that the large corporate plan has people acting on their behalf to push prices down and negotiate those large blocks of business with the providers
This is ignorance of how insurance operates. The large corporations pay less because insurance providers can hedge a bet that most employees will be healthy while the large pool of customers provide ample income to cover those who do get sick. However, if the company starts showing a history of health issues, the insurance would surely go up, no matter the size of the company.
This is a major reason why Obamacare premiums are skyrocketing! (Google Obamacare reinsurance and "risk adjustment") Even though the insurance consumers are a large block, everyone is having to carry the tab for those with serious illnesses, pre-existing conditions, and expanded coverage. On the last point, my premiums are higher to pay for my neighbor's condoms.
You're notion that this was all some scheme to make people "dependent" on the government is not only historically inaccurate
It's the net result of government expansion and takeover… excess reliance on government.
+Kyle Miller
Whoa………that comment was longer than the insurance policy I had to read. 😉
+Kyle Miller
"The problem is the private layer? I assume you mean insurance providers." I mean both actually. Our current health care system is like the auto industry before the government stepped in and forced the people in the business of auto sales to have to clearly mark what was in the vehicle, and the auto makes to provide an MRSP, and the dealers to list that MRSP. Hospital A might charge a radically different price than hospital B.. and their prices aren't posted. Even worse with hospitals is that in an emergency you're usually just stuck with the one closest to you.
"Or, do you mean replace private insurance companies and healthcare providers with government insurance and government issued medical professionals? Worked well for USSR and North Korea." Seriously man? The U.S. is almost entirely alone among developed nations in it's lack universal health care. I cannot believe you just used North Korea as an example. LOL.
"And why is it when insurance providers apply cost pressures, they're evil and trying to compromise everyone's healthcare? But when government does it, it's because they truly care for the patient. Why the two standards?" I didn't say it was bad if an insurance provide puts downward pressure. In fact I pointed out that larger organizations get to use their size to get insurance providers to jockey for lower costs.
"However, if the company starts showing a history of health issues, the insurance would surely go up, no matter the size of the company." Maybe the difference here is that I find the bartering of peoples health as a commodity to be capitalized on sickening.
+Paul Spoerry Hospital A might charge a radically different price than hospital B.. and their prices aren't posted. Even worse with hospitals is that in an emergency you're usually just stuck with the one closest to you
Do you think an emergency is a time to go price shopping? Do you know who knows the prices for services? Insurance companies. And when they apply pressure to lower prices, they are attacked as trying to be profiteers and compromising healthcare. And when government does it, they're considered beautiful and caring.
If the price is not what you expect, you could often negotiate a new price and payment plan with the institution. Now with a mountain of regulation, such flexibility will be severely curtailed.
he auto industry before the government stepped in and forced the people in the business of auto sales to have to clearly mark what was in the vehicle, and the auto makes to provide an MRSP, and the dealers to list that MRSP
And yet, no one suggested the government take over automobile pricing, manufacturer profits, and product packaging. Why not? IOW, make the auto makers agents of the government the way health insurance providers are agents of the government.
The U.S. is almost entirely alone among developed nations in it's lack universal health care
There are many things the U.S. does that others do not. I see that as a flag in its cap, not a detriment. We do things not because others do it, but we have determined it to be the right and just course of action. It is acceptable within the framework of the nation's founding documents and its ideals.
No one disagreed we could work harder to make healthcare more accessible. We disagreed on how to get there.
I didn't say it was bad if an insurance provide puts downward pressure. In fact I pointed out that larger organizations get to use their size to get insurance providers to jockey for lower costs
You didn't say insurance applying pricing pressure on providers was bad, but a super majority of those with your mindset did prior to Obamacare passage. Just review the rhetoric back then. (https://goo.gl/nTCPN7)
You pointed out larger organizations use their size to reduce insurance premiums, not healthcare provider costs.
Maybe the difference here is that I find the bartering of peoples health as a commodity to be capitalized on sickening
This isn't about bartering people's' health. This is about simple dollars and cents. Doctors and nurses are not slaves. They have to be compensated. And, budgets for healthcare are not endless. If the risks and costs to insure a large group of people rises, the premiums will have to rise.
If you believe we should pay no matter the cost out of compassion, then why don't you pay my insurance premiums? Don't be so heartless. Pay till it hurts. Right?