Smile! You’ve Got Socialized Healthcare!

gopher

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''more plans to be cancelled"


That along with Palin's death panels have been projected for years. Still waiting for these prophecies to take place. Glad to know you no longer endorse her idea of death panels.
 

EagleSmack

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Hey Eagle - what happened to your projected "death panels" ??

My projected Death Panels?


Glad to know you no longer endorse her idea of death panels.

Please point me to my post endorsing her idea on death panels



Oh that is right... you are a far left liberal and will say anything.

''more plans to be cancelled"

You think they are done cancelling plans?
 

gopher

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On the contrary we see more people covered today as shown in my posts.

Thought for sure you endorsed the Palin agenda. Don't have the time to do a search but glad to know you don't (or didn't).
 

EagleSmack

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On the contrary we see more people covered today as shown in my posts.

And they had to make it hurt if they did not get covered. Forfeiture of tax returns.

If Obamacare is so amazing why do they need to penalize those who do not buy it? If Obamacare is so amazing why is Congress exempt?

Thought for sure you endorsed the Palin agenda. Don't have the time to do a search but glad to know you don't (or didn't).

So you chose to just accuse me of endorsing Palin's death panel rhetoric without any evidence that I do. Typical of you Gopher. Typical of you and the liberal democrats of today. Just blurt it out and the low informed sheep will believe.

Save yourself the time because your search would be fruitless.
 

gopher

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Worse still, I got called a "Democrat" again - unbelievable!


As for Obamacare, looks like even the NY Times agrees it has worked:


"Has the percentage of uninsured people been reduced?" That's a pretty easy one, and is and should be the first metric. The law has reduced the number of uninsured Americans by about 25 percent. That's a big deal.

"Has insurance under the law been affordable?" Another important question and one that's less easily answered. For about 85 percent of people, the subsidies decreased the cost of premiums. For some people who had substandard plans and had to get new ones, premiums increased. But for the majority, plans are what the terms of the law say are "affordable," and premiums are not going to be spiking next year. Now, what's affordable on an individual basis is relative, depending on all of the other costs that families face.


"Did the Affordable Care Act improve health outcomes?" That's the big question everyone wants answered but it is just simply too soon to tell. One year of increased primary and preventive care just isn't long enough to make those determinations. But there's a glimmer of an indication of where it's working fastest: "An analysis in Health Affairs in August found that mental health treatment among 18- to 25-year-olds who said they had a mental health disorder had increased by more than five percentage points compared with a similar group ages 26 to 35, a significant increase for a particularly vulnerable group." The Oregon Medicaid study, along with a Massachusetts study showed participants reporting better mental health and more economic security. Better mental health for large chunks of the population is also a pretty big deal.


"Will the online exchanges work better this year than last?" Probably. We don't know yet since they're not open. But the federal government, and the few states that had nightmare experiences (Oregon, Hawaii) have had a year to figure out what went wrong. For their part, the Obama administration is sounding pretty confident.


"Has the health care industry been helped or hurt by the law?" Helped, by the NYT's analysis: "Wall Street analysts and health care experts say, the industry appears to be largely flourishing, in part because of the additional business the law created." That's evident in large part by how many insurers have decided to join in this year. For-profit hospitals, along with drug companies, are doing quite well on the stock market. An exception in the industry is hospitals in the states that refused Medicaid expansion, which are still having to provide uncompensated care to the uninsured.


"How has the expansion of Medicaid fared?" Here's the key political question that the NYT frames as some states "balk" at what they fear would create additional costs. Well, no. That was an excuse Republican governors and legislatures used to refuse to play along with the hated Obamacare.

That aside:

"States that expanded Medicaid have seen a remarkable reduction in the number of uninsured, a drop of nearly 40 percent," said Stan Dorn, a health policy expert at the Urban Institute, a nonprofit research group. "That compares with a reduction of less than 10 percent in states that have not expanded.


Upwards of 6.3 million people are left out because they fall in the Medicaid gap—they make too much to qualify for Medicaid in their states, and too little to meet the subsidy level for private insurance on the exchange {not stated here is the unwillingness of certain states to expand Medicaid coverage as that would cover many more people in need}.
"Has the law contributed to a slowdown in healthcare spending?" Maybe? Health care spending is slowing down, a lot. Particularly in Medicare, where the government has more direct control and which has slowed down to the point that it's saving the country more money than any of the deficit reduction plans that have been proposed in the past several years—more than Paul Ryan, more than the Catfood Commission. But whether that slowdown can be primarily attributed to Obamacare isn't clear. Most analysts, though, say it is a definite factor.



While the NY Times is not entirely convinced of its effectiveness, it is clear that ACA is working:



New York Times' Obamacare year one report card misses some key*questions
 

gopher

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You call the NY Slimes liberal?

The same rag that beat the drums for war on Iraq and is Big Business's best pal ain't exactly librul.



As for me, call me politically Realist.
 

Walter

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You call the NY Slimes liberal?

The same rag that beat the drums for war on Iraq and is Big Business's best pal ain't exactly librul.



As for me, call me politically Realist.
Limbaugh calls himself the Mayor of Realsville. You must be one of his constituents.
 

EagleSmack

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You call the NY Slimes liberal?

The same rag that beat the drums for war on Iraq and is Big Business's best pal ain't exactly librul.



As for me, call me politically Realist.

Dude it is so liberal.

Another liberal tactic is to call their own MSM liberal media juggernaut "conservative" to deflect. The NYT is so liberal. Yeah it may have somewhat supported the war in Iraq if you say it did as did the majority of Democrat politicians.

But I would like to read how they did support that war.
 

gopher

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EagleSmack; said:
Dude it is so liberal.

Another liberal tactic is to call their own MSM liberal media juggernaut "conservative" to deflect. The NYT is so liberal. Yeah it may have somewhat supported the war in Iraq if you say it did as did the majority of Democrat politicians.

But I would like to read how they did support that war.



Gee, if I re-posted Judith Miller's accounts (have already done so several times) you would accuse me of playing the BROKEN RECORD card.


;)







..
 

gopher

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NY Times - more reason to smile about socialized health care:



http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...ped-most.html?rref=upshot&abt=0002&abg=1&_r=3





Obama’s Health Law: Who Was Helped Most


By KEVIN QUEALY and MARGOT SANGER-KATZ OCT. 29, 2014

A new data set provides a clearer picture of which people gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.

Change in insured Americans, 2013-14
+4+6+8+10 pct. pts. more insured
We know that about 10 million more people have insurance coverage this year as a result of the Affordable Care Act. But until now it has been difficult to say much about who was getting that coverage — where they live, their age, their income and other such details.



Now a large set of data — from Enroll America, the group trying to sign up people for the program, and from the data firm Civis Analytics — is allowing a much clearer picture. The data shows that the law has done something rather unusual in the American economy this century: It has pushed back against inequality, essentially redistributing income — in the form of health insurance or insurance subsidies — to many of the groups that have fared poorly over the last few decades.

The biggest winners from the law include people between the ages of 18 and 34; blacks; Hispanics; and people who live in rural areas. The areas with the largest increases in the health insurance rate, for example, include rural Arkansas and Nevada; southern Texas; large swaths of New Mexico, Kentucky and West Virginia; and much of inland California and Oregon.

Each of these trends is going in the opposite direction of larger economic patterns. Young people have fared substantially worse in the job market than older people in recent years. Blacks and Hispanics have fared worse than whites and Asians. Rural areas have fallen further behind larger metropolitan areas.

Women are the one modest exception. They have benefited more from Obamacare than men, and they have received larger raises in recent years. But of course women still make considerably less money than men, so an economic benefit for women still pushes against inequality in many ways.

The Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, but the law’s biggest insurance expansion provisions went into effect in January, when millions more people qualified for state Medicaid programs, and new subsidized insurance plans sold in state marketplaces kicked in.

Overall change in uninsured Americans, 2013-14
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
ALL AMERICANS
2013
2014
16.4%
11.3%
ALL AMERICANS
Over all, about 10 million Americans who had no insurance in 2013 signed up for it this year, according to the Enroll America/Civis model. The groups estimate that the national uninsured rate for adults under 65 fell to 11 percent from 16 percent. (Because of the federal Medicare program, which provides universal coverage to Americans over 65 who meet certain basic requirements, more than 98 percent of that group has health insurance.)

Other estimates, including those from Gallup and the health research group the Commonwealth Fund, show higher uninsured rates but a similar reduction in the number and percentage of Americans without insurance. Enroll’s data analysts said their survey appears to have undercounted the uninsured a bit in both years, because they interviewed a smaller number of Hispanics, men and people with low incomes than the census measured. Those people are less likely to be insured, but were also harder for Enroll to reach because they have smaller digital footprints than other groups.

Below are several charts that help explain who was helped most by the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

People who live in states that...
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
DID NOT EXPAND
18.2
13.8
DID NOT EXPAND
EXPANDED MEDICAID
14.9
9.2
EXPANDED MEDICAID
That state boundaries are so prominent in the map attests to the power of state policy in shaping health insurance conditions. The most important factor in predicting whether an American who had no insurance in 2013 signed up this year was whether the state that person lives in expanded its Medicaid program in 2014. (Just consider the contrast between Kentucky, which expanded Medicaid, and Tennessee, which did not.)

In 2012, the Supreme Court gave states the right to opt out of the expansion. In all, 26 states and the District of Columbia expanded Medicaid programs this year, and at least one more state — Pennsylvania — will expand next year. Predominantly, the states that expanded had Democratic political leadership, while those that declined were governed by Republicans, but there were exceptions in both directions.

By race
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
ASIAN
13.6
9.7
ASIAN
WHITE
14.1
10
WHITE
BLACK
24.1
16.1
BLACK
HISPANIC
26.2
16.5
HISPANIC
Blacks and Hispanics entered this year with higher uninsured rates than whites and Asians. That’s still true, but they have also shown substantially larger gains. Matthew Saniie, the director of analytics and data at Enroll, said he attributed the racial trends to two main factors: existing high uninsured rates for those groups, and disproportionate poverty, meaning more people who qualify for Medicaid. In the case of Hispanics, he also said that California’s huge outreach effort, strongly targeted at its Latino population, gave the group another strong enrollment boost.

By age
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
AGES 55 TO 64
12.7
9.1
AGES 55 TO 64
AGES 45 TO 54
15
10.6
AGES 45 TO 54
AGES 35 TO 44
16.4
11.2
AGES 35 TO 44
AGE 18 TO 34
21.6
14.2
AGE 18 TO 34
Critics of the Affordable Care Act have often warned that the program would be unfair to the young because it limits the ability of insurance companies to charge higher rates to older customers, who tend to be sicker. But young adults show the largest reductions in being uninsured of any age group. And that’s not counting the approximately 3 million young adults who received coverage on their parents’ policies before 2014.

By neighborhood income
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
RICHEST 20%
6.5
RICHEST 20%
SECOND QUINTILE
13.4
9.4
SECOND QUINTILE
MIDDLE QUINTILE
17.6
11.9
MIDDLE QUINTILE
FOURTH QUINTILE
21.6
14.3
FOURTH QUINTILE
POOREST 20% OF NEIGHBORHOODS
26.4
17.5
POOREST 20% OF NEIGHBORHOODS
People with the lowest incomes tended to benefit the most from the law. That makes sense, given how the Affordable Care Act is designed. In states that expanded Medicaid, low-income people can get insurance without having to pay a premium. And for middle-income people who qualify for tax credits to help them buy insurance, the subsidies are most generous for those lowest on the income scale. Poorer people were always the least likely to have insurance because their jobs rarely offered it and private premiums were often unaffordable.

By gender
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
MEN
17.7
13
MEN
WOMEN
15.3
9.8
WOMEN
Women were more likely to have insurance before this year, a reflection of existing state Medicaid policies, which offered coverage to pregnant women and mothers, but not childless adults. But that existing gender gap is widening. Professionals doing insurance outreach said that women were often easier to reach and more concerned about access to health care than men.

By people who live in counties that are...
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
SOLIDLY DEMOCRATIC
12
8.8
SOLIDLY DEMOCRATIC
SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN
18.5
13.1
SOLIDLY REPUBLICAN
Despite many Republican voters’ disdain for the Affordable Care Act, parts of the country that lean the most heavily Republican (according to 2012 presidential election results) showed significantly more insurance gains than places where voters lean strongly Democratic. That partly reflects underlying rates of insurance. In liberal places, like Massachusetts and Hawaii, previous state policies had made insurance coverage much more widespread, leaving less room for improvement. But the correlation also reflects trends in wealth and poverty. Many of the poorest and most rural states in the country tend to favor Republican politicians. Of course, the fact that Republican areas showed disproportionate insurance gains does not mean that only Republicans signed up; there are many Democrats living in even the most strongly Republican regions of the country.

Urban and rural
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
CITIES
16
11.1
CITIES
SMALL CITIES
19
12.7
SMALL CITIES
RURAL AREAS
20
13.3
RURAL AREAS
People who lived in rural areas were more likely to gain insurance than those living in big cities.

Over all, the changes tended to be strongest among the groups that were the least likely to be insured. The single most predictive question in the Enroll model for 2014 was whether someone was insured in 2013. That also means that the newly insured are not substantially different from the remaining uninsured in broad demographic terms. There are still a lot of uninsured people remaining, many in the places that had high uninsured rates last year.

Who remains uninsured in 2014

10%12%14%16% uninsured
Enroll and Civis’s data is the output of a statistical model based on a large survey of adults. That means that the numbers are estimates rather than actual observations. For now, Enroll’s broad numbers line up with the findings of existing surveys. Next year, the census will be able to provide a similarly detailed picture of the uninsured in America, using less complex methods. Though Civis’s background is in political campaign outreach, the groups have little incentive for bias because skewed numbers would complicate efforts to find the uninsured and target outreach resources. For more about the methodology of the project, read our companion story here.








Overall, ACA has proven to be a SUCCESS.
 

captain morgan

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They had coverage the entire time gopher... The biggest accomplishment for ACA is that it has added 10's of millions into the ranks of premium-paying individuals that have the same coverage as they had before
 

EagleSmack

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Gee, if I re-posted Judith Miller's accounts (have already done so several times) you would accuse me of playing the BROKEN RECORD card.


;)
..

Why would I if I said I would like to read it.

I call you a broken record when you parrot the same tired lines over and over. You must know what lines they are now because you've been avoiding them.

They had coverage the entire time gopher... The biggest accomplishment for ACA is that it has added 10's of millions into the ranks of premium-paying individuals that have the same coverage as they had before

Captain... you should know that at this time they are saying that anyone who has had insurance ever has it now because of Obamacare.

They are embellishing the numbers any way they can.
 

captain morgan

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Captain... you should know that at this time they are saying that anyone who has had insurance ever has it now because of Obamacare.

They are embellishing the numbers any way they can.

I know what you're driving at. My point is that prior to ACA, everyone had access to healthcare regardless of having an insurance policy or not. With ACA, everyone still has access to healthcare (probably the same or similar level of access) but now those that couldn't afford insurance are forced to buy a policy.

It's ridiculous to pretend that today, having a formal (possibly unaffordable) insurance program magically gives something different to those people that already had access prior to being forced to have a policy.

If gopher wanted to take the position that it is good for all taxpayers that everyone is kicking something into the kitty, then I would heartily agree, but the optics of his position is that there were hordes of people that had no access whatsoever to the health system prior to ACA
 

gopher

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Then why did 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of health care before Obamacare? Even Canadian expert Dr Danilelle Martin testified to that truth in front of Congress and nobody dared to challenge her. Funny how we are no longer hearing of people dying from lack of care or going broke like they used before ACA was created and ended the Republican death panels.
 

captain morgan

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Then why did 45,000 Americans die every year from lack of health care before Obamacare?


Define 'lack of healthcare'... Does this definition include unlimited access to intensive care facilities coupled with a team of highly trained personnel dedicated solely to one patient for months at a time?... Is this some of the magic that ACA now provides?

Death panels?... Puh-lease.
 

gopher

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Besides all that, access to health care wasn't the issue prior to the enactment of ACA. Affordability is and remains the issue. Now, millions are covered and pre-conditions are no longer any type of factor, no thanks to Republicans.