It's useless to make broad brush statements about ACA being more (or less) effective if there isn't a comparative metric used.
Smile! You’ve Got Socialized Healthcare!
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Speaking of herpes, under Republiconcare 45,000 Americans used to die every year from lack of health care. In the past few years under ACA we have had no such reports from any source whether pro or against HCR. Ask any of those people who testified whether they prefer the way things were in the old days when many of them risked death because they did not have coverage. While you're at it, ask elite employees of Fortune 500 companies who have had their health insurance subsidized by taxpayers if they would like tax reform that eliminated that subsidy so that they would have to pay for their own insurance.
Every time I post something positive about ACA you act as if you have been raped.
Let's see what your reaction is to this:
Republican senator to White House: Stop talking about all that good Obamacare stuff!
Republican senator to White House: Stop talking about all that good Obamacare stuff!
Robust enrollments and shockingly good healthcare cost estimates are nothing to celebrate, says Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). So he wants the White House to just shut up about it already.
"It's time for the White House to stop celebrating and start thinking about the people," Barrasso said on the Senate floor on Wednesday.
He also criticized the administration for touting a report from the Congressional Budget Office on Monday, which found that ObamaCare was becoming cheaper in the long run. Those costs were dropping because of decreases in healthcare spending and a smaller-than-expected enrollment drive—which Barrasso said is nothing to celebrate.
Actually, the costs are even lower than what the CBO estimated spending on health care would be before the law was implemented. So even with the subsidies and Medicaid expansion spending added into the mix, the government is spending less on health care overall than the CBO projected five years ago. Which is pretty much a big deal. No wonder Barrasso doesn't want anyone talking about that.
"The Obama administration and every Democrat who voted for it should be embarrassed for it," Barrasso says. This is coming from the guy supposedly "leading the Senate’s working group to create an Obamacare alternative." He should know from embarrassed.
It is no secret why people have warmed up to Obamacare and why Obama's popularity ratings are so far superior to those of Congressional Republicans. Takes an idiot of the worse kind to criticize ACA whose success is without question.
Let's see what your reaction is to this:
Republican senator to White House: Stop talking about all that good Obamacare stuff!
Republican senator to White House: Stop talking about all that good Obamacare stuff!
Robust enrollments and shockingly good healthcare cost estimates are nothing to celebrate, says Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY). So he wants the White House to just shut up about it already.
"It's time for the White House to stop celebrating and start thinking about the people," Barrasso said on the Senate floor on Wednesday.
He also criticized the administration for touting a report from the Congressional Budget Office on Monday, which found that ObamaCare was becoming cheaper in the long run. Those costs were dropping because of decreases in healthcare spending and a smaller-than-expected enrollment drive—which Barrasso said is nothing to celebrate.
Actually, the costs are even lower than what the CBO estimated spending on health care would be before the law was implemented. So even with the subsidies and Medicaid expansion spending added into the mix, the government is spending less on health care overall than the CBO projected five years ago. Which is pretty much a big deal. No wonder Barrasso doesn't want anyone talking about that.
"The Obama administration and every Democrat who voted for it should be embarrassed for it," Barrasso says. This is coming from the guy supposedly "leading the Senate’s working group to create an Obamacare alternative." He should know from embarrassed.
It is no secret why people have warmed up to Obamacare and why Obama's popularity ratings are so far superior to those of Congressional Republicans. Takes an idiot of the worse kind to criticize ACA whose success is without question.
Cleveland Clinic sees 40 percent drop in charity care with Obamacare
Cleveland Clinic sees 40 percent drop in charity care with*Obamcare
The Cleveland Clininc, one of U.S. News & World Report's top four hospitals in the United States, says it spent 40 percent less on uncompensated care for the uninsured in just the past year. That's $70 million less spent in 2014 than in 2013. It's thanks, the hospital says, to expanded Medicaid coverage under Obamacare as well as expanded coverage on the exchange.
"The decrease in charity care is primarily attributable to the increase in Medicaid patients due to the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in the State of Ohio and the resulting decrease in the number of charity patients," the hospital's year-end financial statement reported.
That 40 percent drop spotlights a trend in how payments are changing for all providers since the health law rolled out the Medicaid expansion and subsidies that help some lower-income people purchase policies on the new insurance marketplaces, said John Palmer, spokesperson for Ohio Hospital Association.
"Now that you're starting to see that shift from uninsured or underserved on over into health care programs such as Medicaid and the exchange, that has had a good impact," he said. "And, obviously, it is reflective of what hospitals are experiencing with uncompensated care in the areas of charity care especially."
That's part of the total $2.6 billion saved by hospitals around the country, according to the administration. Contrast that with the hospital closures, particularly in rural areas in states that didn't expand Medicaid and can't afford to keep operating when they have to treat the uninsured.
Obamacare was intended to end the problem of uncompensated care, and Medicaid expansion was one of the ways it was supposed to do it. In order to pay for it, hospitals agreed to take reduced Medicare reimbursements and big cuts in Disproportionate Share Hospital, or DSH, funding, which the federal government pays to offset the costs of uncompensated care. Then in 2012 the Supreme Court intervened, and decided that states could reject the expansion. The cuts remained in place, and hospitals that treat uninsured patients in the non-expansion states have endured the consequences.
ACA = continuing to save money and lives every day.
Cleveland Clinic sees 40 percent drop in charity care with*Obamcare
The Cleveland Clininc, one of U.S. News & World Report's top four hospitals in the United States, says it spent 40 percent less on uncompensated care for the uninsured in just the past year. That's $70 million less spent in 2014 than in 2013. It's thanks, the hospital says, to expanded Medicaid coverage under Obamacare as well as expanded coverage on the exchange.
"The decrease in charity care is primarily attributable to the increase in Medicaid patients due to the expansion of Medicaid eligibility in the State of Ohio and the resulting decrease in the number of charity patients," the hospital's year-end financial statement reported.
That 40 percent drop spotlights a trend in how payments are changing for all providers since the health law rolled out the Medicaid expansion and subsidies that help some lower-income people purchase policies on the new insurance marketplaces, said John Palmer, spokesperson for Ohio Hospital Association.
"Now that you're starting to see that shift from uninsured or underserved on over into health care programs such as Medicaid and the exchange, that has had a good impact," he said. "And, obviously, it is reflective of what hospitals are experiencing with uncompensated care in the areas of charity care especially."
That's part of the total $2.6 billion saved by hospitals around the country, according to the administration. Contrast that with the hospital closures, particularly in rural areas in states that didn't expand Medicaid and can't afford to keep operating when they have to treat the uninsured.
Obamacare was intended to end the problem of uncompensated care, and Medicaid expansion was one of the ways it was supposed to do it. In order to pay for it, hospitals agreed to take reduced Medicare reimbursements and big cuts in Disproportionate Share Hospital, or DSH, funding, which the federal government pays to offset the costs of uncompensated care. Then in 2012 the Supreme Court intervened, and decided that states could reject the expansion. The cuts remained in place, and hospitals that treat uninsured patients in the non-expansion states have endured the consequences.
ACA = continuing to save money and lives every day.
Oooops....
Baton Rouge emergency room closing shows cost of Obamacare fight | Health | FresnoBee.com
Not good news at all.
Baton Rouge emergency room closing shows cost of Obamacare fight | Health | FresnoBee.com
Not good news at all.
Baton Rouge hospital:
The shutdown serves as an early warning for hospitals in states like Louisiana, where Governor Bobby Jindal turned down federal money to expand Medicaid.
from the conservative pro business Bloomberg
Baton Rouge Emergency Room Shows the Cost of Obamacare Fight - Bloomberg Politics
The shutdown serves as an early warning for hospitals in states like Louisiana, where Governor Bobby Jindal turned down federal money to expand Medicaid.
from the conservative pro business Bloomberg
Baton Rouge Emergency Room Shows the Cost of Obamacare Fight - Bloomberg Politics
Study: Medicaid expansion improving some states’ budgets
Researchers project expansion costs in Kentucky, Arkansas completely offset through 2021
Study: Medicaid expansion improving some states’ budgets – Kansas Health Institute
As a legislative session focused on the Kansas budget problems winds to a close with no decision on Medicaid expansion, a new study says some states that have expanded eligibility have seen their budget situations improve.
The State Health Reform Assistance Network, a partnership of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Princeton University, studied the effects of Medicaid expansion on budgets in eight states.
The study found that those states realized about $1.8 billion in combined savings and new revenue from expanded Medicaid eligibility. The money came mostly from the federal government picking up a larger share of the health care costs for those newly eligible for comprehensive Medicaid coverage, which created state budget savings on programs that serve the uninsured, pregnant women and people with physical disabilities or mental health needs.
The states in the study — Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia — also gained new revenue by taxing insurance providers.
The study’s authors concluded that in Arkansas and Kentucky, budget savings are expected to offset the states’ share of expansion costs through at least fiscal year 2021.
Kansas is one of 22 states that so far have declined to expand Medicaid eligibility under the federal Affordable Care Act since the expansion went into effect in 2014.
Expanding Medicaid access to Americans who make up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line was one of the cornerstones of the ACA, which President Barack Obama signed in 2010. Federal tax dollars fund 100 percent of expansion from 2014 through 2016, before gradually stepping down to a 90-10 federal-state cost share. A 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed states to decide whether they will participate in the expansion.
Little movement after hearing
Advocates of Medicaid expansion in Kansas — led by the state’s hospital association — made their strongest push yet this session and succeeded in getting a legislative hearing on the issue last month.
Photo by Dave Ranney
Susan Mosier, acting secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, testified during a legislative hearing that Medicaid expansion would cost the state more than $100 million annually. But a recent study found that eight states where eligibility has been expanded have seen $1.8 billion in combined net savings and new revenue.
View larger photo
But there has been little movement since that hearing, where a member of Gov. Sam Brownback’s Cabinet said expansion could cost the state more than $100 million annually. Susan Mosier, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, also said the state should fully fund waiting lists for Kansans with disabilities seeking daily living support services before extending medical coverage to more low-income Kansans.
Brownback said at a recent news conference that he was still open to expansion and that talks with the Kansas Hospital Association continue.
But he said concerns remain about the disability waiting lists and the cost of expansion. He also said he wants any expansion agreement with the Obama administration to include a work or job training requirement for new Medicaid recipients, similar to one the state recently instituted for food stamp recipients.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has allowed for Medicaid expansion revisions such as cost-sharing and premium assistance in states like Arkansas. But it has yet to approve any work requirements.
Brownback said he’s looking for a plan that can “thread the needle” between what the hospitals want, what his administration wants and what the Obama administration is willing to negotiate.
“That’s why we continue to meet,” Brownback said. “I don’t know if the administration will show any more flexibility. I don’t know what we can come up with for resources to be able to get our wait list down so we have money to be able to do it. But if this is a possibility, let’s continue to see if it’s something that could work.”
Right now any plan the Brownback administration agrees to must be approved by the Legislature under state law. Time is running out to change that during the 2015 session, which is now down to a few final weeks that begin April 29.
During those weeks lawmakers will be focused on how to close a $667 million shortfall between the budget the Senate passed for the next fiscal year and what the state is projected to take in.
Shifting costs
The State Health Reform Assistance Network’s study suggests expansion could contain budget savings by shifting costs to the federal government. An Urban Institute study published last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation found similar results in Connecticut, Washington and New Mexico.
State officials there reported cost savings from expansion because of shifts in existing Medicaid-related expenses, and savings in the state’s behavioral health system and prisons system.
Those systems treat large numbers of people with mental illnesses. A study published this week by the American Mental Health Counselors Association found that population is better served in states that have expanded Medicaid.
The Urban Institute researchers also found that after expanding Medicaid, Connecticut, New Mexico and Washington reported less uncompensated care — a major issue for hospitals in Kansas.
Medicaid expansion was intended to offset reductions in federal payments for Medicare and for hospitals that treat large numbers of uninsured patients. Without expansion, some hospitals say they are now reaching a financial breaking point.
Conservative think tanks that oppose expansion have said states that expanded eligibility are besieged by hidden costs that make the program more expensive than projected — including a “woodwork effect” in which residents who were already eligible for Medicaid but had not enrolled begin to take advantage of it.
Expansion would extend coverage to individual Kansans who make $16,105 or less per year and families of four who make about $32,913 or less. KDHE estimates about 151,000 Kansans who were not previously eligible would sign up for Medicaid if eligibility as expanded to the level called for in the ACA.
Many of them now fall into a “coverage gap” within the ACA: They make too much to qualify for Medicaid under current Kansas income guidelines — some of the nation’s most restrictive — but too little to qualify for federal subsidies to help buy private insurance from an online exchange.
A study published earlier this month by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by the coverage gap.
The nonprofit KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration. All stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online.
ACA = continuing to save money and lives every day.
Researchers project expansion costs in Kentucky, Arkansas completely offset through 2021
Study: Medicaid expansion improving some states’ budgets – Kansas Health Institute
As a legislative session focused on the Kansas budget problems winds to a close with no decision on Medicaid expansion, a new study says some states that have expanded eligibility have seen their budget situations improve.
The State Health Reform Assistance Network, a partnership of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Princeton University, studied the effects of Medicaid expansion on budgets in eight states.
The study found that those states realized about $1.8 billion in combined savings and new revenue from expanded Medicaid eligibility. The money came mostly from the federal government picking up a larger share of the health care costs for those newly eligible for comprehensive Medicaid coverage, which created state budget savings on programs that serve the uninsured, pregnant women and people with physical disabilities or mental health needs.
The states in the study — Arkansas, Colorado, Kentucky, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and West Virginia — also gained new revenue by taxing insurance providers.
The study’s authors concluded that in Arkansas and Kentucky, budget savings are expected to offset the states’ share of expansion costs through at least fiscal year 2021.
Kansas is one of 22 states that so far have declined to expand Medicaid eligibility under the federal Affordable Care Act since the expansion went into effect in 2014.
Expanding Medicaid access to Americans who make up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line was one of the cornerstones of the ACA, which President Barack Obama signed in 2010. Federal tax dollars fund 100 percent of expansion from 2014 through 2016, before gradually stepping down to a 90-10 federal-state cost share. A 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision allowed states to decide whether they will participate in the expansion.
Little movement after hearing
Advocates of Medicaid expansion in Kansas — led by the state’s hospital association — made their strongest push yet this session and succeeded in getting a legislative hearing on the issue last month.
Photo by Dave Ranney
Susan Mosier, acting secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, testified during a legislative hearing that Medicaid expansion would cost the state more than $100 million annually. But a recent study found that eight states where eligibility has been expanded have seen $1.8 billion in combined net savings and new revenue.
View larger photo
But there has been little movement since that hearing, where a member of Gov. Sam Brownback’s Cabinet said expansion could cost the state more than $100 million annually. Susan Mosier, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, also said the state should fully fund waiting lists for Kansans with disabilities seeking daily living support services before extending medical coverage to more low-income Kansans.
Brownback said at a recent news conference that he was still open to expansion and that talks with the Kansas Hospital Association continue.
But he said concerns remain about the disability waiting lists and the cost of expansion. He also said he wants any expansion agreement with the Obama administration to include a work or job training requirement for new Medicaid recipients, similar to one the state recently instituted for food stamp recipients.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has allowed for Medicaid expansion revisions such as cost-sharing and premium assistance in states like Arkansas. But it has yet to approve any work requirements.
Brownback said he’s looking for a plan that can “thread the needle” between what the hospitals want, what his administration wants and what the Obama administration is willing to negotiate.
“That’s why we continue to meet,” Brownback said. “I don’t know if the administration will show any more flexibility. I don’t know what we can come up with for resources to be able to get our wait list down so we have money to be able to do it. But if this is a possibility, let’s continue to see if it’s something that could work.”
Right now any plan the Brownback administration agrees to must be approved by the Legislature under state law. Time is running out to change that during the 2015 session, which is now down to a few final weeks that begin April 29.
During those weeks lawmakers will be focused on how to close a $667 million shortfall between the budget the Senate passed for the next fiscal year and what the state is projected to take in.
Shifting costs
The State Health Reform Assistance Network’s study suggests expansion could contain budget savings by shifting costs to the federal government. An Urban Institute study published last month by the Kaiser Family Foundation found similar results in Connecticut, Washington and New Mexico.
State officials there reported cost savings from expansion because of shifts in existing Medicaid-related expenses, and savings in the state’s behavioral health system and prisons system.
Those systems treat large numbers of people with mental illnesses. A study published this week by the American Mental Health Counselors Association found that population is better served in states that have expanded Medicaid.
The Urban Institute researchers also found that after expanding Medicaid, Connecticut, New Mexico and Washington reported less uncompensated care — a major issue for hospitals in Kansas.
Medicaid expansion was intended to offset reductions in federal payments for Medicare and for hospitals that treat large numbers of uninsured patients. Without expansion, some hospitals say they are now reaching a financial breaking point.
Conservative think tanks that oppose expansion have said states that expanded eligibility are besieged by hidden costs that make the program more expensive than projected — including a “woodwork effect” in which residents who were already eligible for Medicaid but had not enrolled begin to take advantage of it.
Expansion would extend coverage to individual Kansans who make $16,105 or less per year and families of four who make about $32,913 or less. KDHE estimates about 151,000 Kansans who were not previously eligible would sign up for Medicaid if eligibility as expanded to the level called for in the ACA.
Many of them now fall into a “coverage gap” within the ACA: They make too much to qualify for Medicaid under current Kansas income guidelines — some of the nation’s most restrictive — but too little to qualify for federal subsidies to help buy private insurance from an online exchange.
A study published earlier this month by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately affected by the coverage gap.
The nonprofit KHI News Service is an editorially independent initiative of the Kansas Health Institute and a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor reporting collaboration. All stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to KHI.org when a story is reposted online.
ACA = continuing to save money and lives every day.
Red ink could kill Covered California - The Orange County Register
Oh dear... and Cali took the federal money and it still isn't helping.
Oh dear... and Cali took the federal money and it still isn't helping.
California wants to expand its version of Medicaid in order to cover illegal aliens. How smart is that?
Don't be mean. These are temporary problems. I'm sure they'll have this all straightened out absolutely no later than. . . hmm. . . 2026?
They know their base that's for sure.
See... look you get subsidies...sign right here... isn't this great?
Then Tax Time comes along and BAM... Pay Up! The time to shout and scream is past and you are now in. Nobody shall hear you scream now.
I love it. I want Obamacare rolled out fully! No more delays.
See... look you get subsidies...sign right here... isn't this great?
Then Tax Time comes along and BAM... Pay Up! The time to shout and scream is past and you are now in. Nobody shall hear you scream now.
I love it. I want Obamacare rolled out fully! No more delays.
Hang on. . . working on it. . . there! got it!. . . OK, Bob fire it up. . . wait. . . sh*t!
Repeat as needed.
Betcha the government didn't take any money back from the insurance companies.