Obama's legacy

[gowlerk 2,099]

So then you do realize that private insurance does not have "death panels"? Instead they have bureaucrats sitting at a desk charged with keeping costs down by denying claims. How is that better?

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[kallend 1,822]

gowlerk

So then you do realize that private insurance does not have "death panels"? Instead they have bureaucrats sitting at a desk charged with keeping costs down by denying claims. How is that better?

Actually a typical private US insurance company has a team consisting of MDs that make denial decisions. Medicare (a government program) requires that denials are made by MDs.

So no difference whatsoever. Just another right wing scare tactic.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[brenthutch 419]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-illinois-land-of-lincoln-obamacare-collapse-edit-0727-jm-20160726-story.html

Here is one just for you.

[gowlerk 2,099]

brenthutch

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-illinois-land-of-lincoln-obamacare-collapse-edit-0727-jm-20160726-story.html

Here is one just for you.

Yup, it's a crazy system you have down there. Single payer baby, it's the way to go. That is, if you want your healthcare system to be about...say....healthcare. If you want it to be mostly about insurance company profits, well, keep going down the road you're on.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[brenthutch 419]

gowlerk

***http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-illinois-land-of-lincoln-obamacare-collapse-edit-0727-jm-20160726-story.html

Here is one just for you.

Yup, it's a crazy system you have down there. Single payer baby, it's the way to go. That is, if you want your healthcare system to be about...say....healthcare. If you want it to be mostly about insurance company profits, well, keep going down the road you're on.

Here is one for you!

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/estimated-52-000-canadians-sought-medical-care-outside-canada-fraser-institute-says-1.2997726

"The estimated number of Canadians leaving the country seeking medical care is on the rise, according to a report released by the the Fraser Institute on Tuesday.

Hospital ER times reveal some ‘disturbing’ waits
Medical wait times up to 3 times longer in Canada
An estimated 52,000 Canadians — half of those from Ontario — left the country to receive non-emergency health care in 2014, according to a report titled Leaving Canada for Medical Care.

The new report notes an increase of more than 10,000 patients — or 26 per cent — from a year earlier are looking outside Canada for medical treatment."

[skypuppy 1]

gowlerk

***http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-illinois-land-of-lincoln-obamacare-collapse-edit-0727-jm-20160726-story.html

Here is one just for you.

Yup, it's a crazy system you have down there. Single payer baby, it's the way to go. That is, if you want your healthcare system to be about...say....healthcare. If you want it to be mostly about insurance company profits, well, keep going down the road you're on.

right. If you want to wait for treatment until there's no point in waiting for treatment. Or if, as in my mother's case, you want to take an ambulance to the hospital when it decides it should divert and pick up a second patient in order to save money. Too bad if my mother had a fatal heart attack on the way to the hospital after they picked up the second person... That's health care in Canada - no where near as good as people claim

If some old guy can do it then obviously it can't be very extreme. Otherwise he'd already be dead.
Bruce McConkey 'I thought we were gonna die, and I couldn't think of anyone

[kallend 1,822]

brenthutch

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/editorials/ct-illinois-land-of-lincoln-obamacare-collapse-edit-0727-jm-20160726-story.html

Here is one just for you.

Indeed, the profit motive seems inappropriate when it comes to peoples' health care.

Thank you for making the point.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[brenthutch 419]

As unsavory as it may be, reality is reality and math is math.

Say hello to the unicorns for me.

[brenthutch 419]

"July has been rough for Obamacare’s non-profit co-op health plans. Four closed after running out of money — three in just one week. Just seven of the original 23 co-ops are still standing. Those seven all lost money last year — and may yet go out of business before the calendar turns to 2017.

All that failure has been pricey. Taxpayers are out $1.7 billion in federal loans that these co-ops will never pay back.

The co-ops stand out as perfect examples of how Obamacare’s idea of government-managed “competition” is doomed to fail."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/sallypipes/2016/07/25/obamacares-co-op-disaster-an-unfunny-comedy-of-errors/

[brenthutch 419]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2016/08/03/humana-to-abandon-obamacare-patients-in-1200-u-s-counties/

"Humana is the latest health insurer to significantly pull back its participation selling subsidized individual coverage under the Affordable Care Act, announcing plans to scale back next year to “no more than 156 counties” across 11 states."

Apparently neither the for profit nor the non-profit health insurance sectors are faring very well under Obamacare.

[billvon 2,734]

brenthutch

"Humana, one of the nation’s top health insurers, is pulling out of ObamaCare plans in all but a handful of states after a year of nearly $1 billion in losses."

http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/288772-humana-to-leave-substantially-all-obamacare-markets

And another, HIP of New Jersey:

========
That July, HIP had leased most of its assets--including its 18 health care centers--to Pinnacle Health Enterprises, a subsidiary of PHP Healthcare, a for-profit medical management company based in Reston, VA. The deal was a last-ditch effort to save the financially ailing HMO, which in recent years had found it harder and harder to compete. . . .

Cost-cutting alone couldn't save HIP, however, not with a partner as troubled as PHP proved to be. In less than a year, the deal meant to rescue New Jersey's fourth-largest HMO had hastened its collapse--a disaster for patients, hospitals, and doctors. . . .

The fall of HIP has raised angry questions on all sides. How could a plan with a large and loyal membership fail so miserably, leaving so many patients and providers adrift? And what does a collapse like this say about the HMO market in general--and about the risks posed for patients and doctors beyond New Jersey's borders?
=========

Indeed. What does it say about Obamacare that this once-top-ranked HMO failed despite Herculean efforts to save it? Even when everyone loved it? Is it the end of all health insurance companies, along with Obamacare? Surely if a beloved HMO like this fails, Obamacare is dead. Nothing can save it. You grandmas will die at home when they can't get care. Obamacare will . . .

Wait. That was 1999.

It's almost as if health insurance companies fail whether or not Obamacare exists. Even if they are awesome. Funny, that.

Oh well. At least it's still job-killing. Right?

[brenthutch 419]

Apples and oranges.

Meanwhile, in the real world...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamacare-death-spiral-update-1470436014

[billvon 2,734]

>Apples and oranges.

Exactly. I am comparing a healthcare organization shutting down with a healthcare organization shutting down. Those two things are nothing like each other; no similarities at all.

It is well known that every single healthcare provider that failed BEFORE Obamacare was just free market economics at work; the invisible hand of capitalism making adjustments where needed. On the other hand, every healthcare provider that failed AFTER Obamacare was due to Obama's job-killing socialist criminal law.

[brenthutch 419]

""The Big Short" opens with Mark Twain's thesis, "It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." Providing affordable insurance to the chronically ill is a dilemma. Those who were certain the healthy exchange customers would flock to pay for health insurance that is starting to cost more than their mortgages were just flat wrong. Hopefully a more humble answer is found before this bubble bursts."

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/09/the-big-obamacare-bubble-is-about-to-explode-commentary.html

[wmw999 2,314]

Letting them die with no care at all is so much cheaper. ER care is both less effective and more expensive than insurance, but it has the advantage of not being the responsibility of the sainted insurance companies. As long as they maintain profits, and the image that they're really only interested in out health, it's ok I guess.

Maybe something tiered, where a certain basic level of health care, including preventive, is paid for, and the cream of the crop is still available only to rich people so there's still economic classism. We already do it for renal failure.

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[brenthutch 419]

wmw999

As long as they maintain profits

Wendy P.

It looks increasingly likely that the few remaining NON-PROFIT, co-ops will fail by the end of the year, taking 1.24 billion in tax payer dollars with them, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without coverage.

[brenthutch 419]

"It has not been a good week for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.

A slew of news, from insurers dropping out to possible fraud among healthcare providers, has all accumulated in a deluge of negative headlines for one of President Obama's signature laws.

In fact, it's gotten so bad that it appears that the whole program itself may be in doubt."

http://www.businessinsider.com/obamacare-is-in-slow-motion-death-spiral-2016-8

Wow, it is happening even faster than I predicted.

[winsor 222]

brenthutch

"It has not been a good week for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), better known as Obamacare.

A slew of news, from insurers dropping out to possible fraud among healthcare providers, has all accumulated in a deluge of negative headlines for one of President Obama's signature laws.

In fact, it's gotten so bad that it appears that the whole program itself may be in doubt."

http://www.businessinsider.com/obamacare-is-in-slow-motion-death-spiral-2016-8

Wow, it is happening even faster than I predicted.

Hey, NOBODY saw this coming.

Expecting the ACA to go tits up would have required, say, a Third Grade understanding of arithmetic, which is TOTALLY unrealistic.

[gowlerk 2,099]

Quote

Hey, NOBODY saw this coming.

Expecting the ACA to go tits up would have required, say, a Third Grade understanding of arithmetic, which is TOTALLY unrealistic.

Exactly. It was never going to be successful in the form it ended up being passed in. The Democrats were too afraid to stand up and pass a bill that would work. In both houses.

But, the camel now has it's nose inside the tent......There is no going back now, anymore than conservatives can repeal medicare or social security.

What do you think will happen next?

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[winsor 222]

gowlerk

Quote

Hey, NOBODY saw this coming.

Expecting the ACA to go tits up would have required, say, a Third Grade understanding of arithmetic, which is TOTALLY unrealistic.

Exactly. It was never going to be successful in the form it ended up being passed in. The Democrats were too afraid to stand up and pass a bill that would work. In both houses.

But, the camel now has it's nose inside the tent......There is no going back now, anymore than conservatives can repeal medicare or social security.

What do you think will happen next?

The one thing I can assure you is that the fundamental issues the plague us will remain firmly in place. Too much money is at stake.

Treatment that should cost in the tens of dollars at most will continue to cost tens of thousands of dollars.

An Engineer is defined as someone who can accomplish for $0.05 what any idiot can do for a dollar. A politician cannot accomplish with unlimited funds what any idiot could do for free.

There are no math requirements for Law School or the Bar, yet we keep electing people responsible for public accounts from the most singularly innumerate of our population - with predictable results.

Expecting Attorneys to bring sanity to the practice of Medicine is the stuff from which bad jokes are made, and this time it is not funny.

Given free rein, I could correct the system in one fell swoop. There would be too many people whose ride on the gravy train would be over to get much of a buy-in, so we are stuck with whatever transpires.

Whatever 'fixes' are put in place are sure to make things worse.


BSBD,

Winsor

[brenthutch 419]

gowlerk

Quote

Hey, NOBODY saw this coming.

Expecting the ACA to go tits up would have required, say, a Third Grade understanding of arithmetic, which is TOTALLY unrealistic.

What do you think will happen next?

I'm glad you asked, it will go down something like this:
Training wheels (risk corridors) come off in 2017, this will necessitate premium increases, (already averaging 24+%), sticker shock will chase away the young and healthy (it is cheaper to pay the fine than the premiums already). More people will game the system, buying insurance only when they get sick, this will drive up costs even more, a.k.a. Death spiral. No legislative solution will be available to HRC, as the house will still be in the hands of the Republicans. The whole thing will collapse, hurting millions, Democrats will be rightly blamed, Clinton will be the first failed president of the new millennium, Republicans will retake the WH, Senate and add to their majority in the House in 2020.

[gowlerk 2,099]

Other than your fantasy about the world you live in taking a sharp right turn because of it, the first part is largely correct.

Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

[JerryBaumchen 1,270]

Hi winsor,

Quote

Given free rein, I could correct the system in one fell swoop.

Explain?

Jerry Baumchen

PS) Ronald Reagan had 15 word solutions to every problem because he could not understand the problems.

[normiss 723]

Most of that first part has been true prior to the ACA, not because of it though.

[brenthutch 419]

gowlerk

Other than your fantasy about the world you live in taking a sharp right turn because of it, the first part is largely correct.

Look at what happened to the Dems after Obamacare passed, what do you think will happen to them after it fails?